Nothing. How much money do you have? Nothing. Okay. You're watching I-24 News. I'm Sarah Martinez, live from Tel Aviv. Today marks the 83rd day of the war as Israel intensifies its ground operation to the Smaelto Hamas in Gaza. The military announcing this morning the death of three more IDF soldiers killed in combat in the Gaza Strip. Two-year-old Major Dvir David Fima, 24-year-old Captain Nerea Zisk and 22-year-old First Class Sergeant in the reserves Asaf Bin Hashtubu. Current death toll of slain Israeli troops killed in just 11 weeks stands at 167. Meanwhile, a major escalation of violence in the north of the country overnight with the military on high alert. IDF Chief of Staff Ertia Levy says the army needs to be ready for a possible attack from the north. Northern Israeli towns of Roshan Ikran, Kiryat Shmona along the Lebanese border were pummeled by the most intense barrage of rockets since the start of the war Wednesday evening. Thirty-four rockets fired by Hasbal are resulting in a direct hit to a home and damage to a kindergarten. Israel responded to the attacks with airstrikes in southern Lebanon. Still in the north, the southern Golan Heights was the target of a kamikaze drone attack overnight, first such attack since the start of the war. Iran backed militias in Iraq claiming responsibility for the blast that caused damage to a building near the town of Elad, which they say was launched in support of Gaza. With me here in studio is I-24 News senior diplomatic correspondent Owen Alterman. Owen amidst all this violence, many diplomatic meetings taking place on the sidelines, most notably Netanyahu holding a phone call with French President Emmanuel Macron, who expressed his concern, the civilian death toll and as well as the humanitarian emergency facing the civilian population in Gaza. Right. And this of course coming just two days, Sarah, after the statement from the French presidency about its concern about Israel's war in Gaza as they say and the need for as they put it a ceasefire. So obviously the Israeli government not all that happy, one would imagine with the French position on this, again, going back weeks, going back of course even before this call, the visit by the French foreign minister to Israel a short time ago. But the reality is the Israeli government needs France, needs France on the Lebanese front, right? That the French are active in diplomacy, I think Israel's plan A, in terms of trying to move as well as forces away from the border, France's special relationship in Lebanon means the French government is invested in this issue, will want to show success in this issue. And it's possible that France's success in Lebanon is Israel's success as well. So the Israeli government and Israel's prime minister having to a sense hold their nose and listen to whatever Macron has to say about the Gaza war, because Israel does want to work with France on the Lebanese front. But of course the readout from the Israeli prime minister's office ending with what we've become accustomed to in these readouts of calls with foreign leaders, Sarah. The determination of the Israeli public to change the security situation in the south and in the north, such that Israelis can move back to their homes in those two arenas. And meanwhile Jordan's King Abdullah and Egyptian President Sisi meeting in Cairo, were they discussing the war, pardon Gaza, after the war? Specifically they announced the rejection of any Israeli move to expel Palestinians and Gaza in the West Bank, but that was never on the table, Owen. Look, on one hand it's a straw man. But on the other hand, Sarah, we know that there are people in Israel talking about this in one way or another, right? Voluntary migration or what not and Gazans leaving the Gaza Strip to other places. We know obviously the sensitivity to this in Egypt. We've seen the Egyptian policy on the border, especially in those first weeks of the war when the border was completely closed even to foreign nationals. Remember how much tension that caused between Egypt and other countries. This is the primal fear of the Egyptian government. And for that matter, the Jordanian government too, obviously geographically, Jordan is in a direct sense less concerned about the Gaza Strip. But obviously concerned about a precedent that would be set in a doomsday scenario for the West Bank. So you're right, obviously the fear is exaggerated, but the paranoia is there. But we've seen so many extreme events over the course of the past few months in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that these two leaders want to get, from their perspective, get out in front of this issue. Although I agree with you, this is not something that's about to happen. Right, remember there were discussions possibly of having those Gazan civilians moved temporarily to Egypt in order to minimize civilian casualties during the bombings. But obviously Egypt obviously doesn't want to take on that responsibility, as you mentioned. Also US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken expected to arrive in Israel this week. Yeah, late next week according to the Axios website. Obviously no shortage of items on the agenda as ever, a kind of check-in visit, one would imagine, for the US Secretary of State. Look, the general lines and general trajectory of American policy hasn't changed, Sarah, but Blinken, I assume, will want to come here to be able to speak to the Israeli leadership directly and to speak to the public directly. And of course, as with diplomatic visits in general, the symbolism of the visit is important as well. The US wanting to be seen around the Middle East and around the world as active as working to try to, from the perspective of the other countries and from the Biden administration itself in a sense restrain the Israeli military operation at the sensitive point where it's moving to use the language of the Biden administration from the high intensity to the low intensity phase. So Blinken I think will want to be seen here as being involved in the diplomacy. According to that report also expected to go to the West Bank, to Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar. So obviously other stops in line with his past trips with entity Blinken's past trips to the region. So in terms of exactly the specifics, again, I think in a general sense, the trajectory of US policy hasn't changed the specifics again of where the war stands and where the war will stand next week at the time of the visit. And how quickly, I think we may get a sense the US wants to see this transition. And stay with me, I want to cross over to I-24 News correspondent, Pierre Klochenler. He's in southern Israel. Pierre, what's the latest in the ground operation? Well, it's very difficult to distinguish what's going on with the naked eye because the fog, the morning fog adds up to the fog of war that the IDF has imposed on its operations in the central and southern sector of the Gaza Strip. But I'll try to decipher what's going on right now. You see behind that range of hills, this is about four kilometers from where we are, and this is the southern sector of the Gaza City. And right now, they are fighting. You can hear maybe the artillery outgoing. They're not shooting blindly onto the Gaza Strip. They get coordinates from the ground forces that are operating in the area. They identify presumed terror targets. And as a result, pass the coordinate to the artillery, and the artillery shoots maybe a floor of a building, maybe a window of a building where a sniper is hidden, and that's the way it's operating right now. Now, in Rafa, Palestinian media affiliated to Hamas said that there have been aerial strikes just on the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt on Gaza territory. They claim that tents of displaced Palestinians have burnt. It's difficult to verify. But we know that this city on the border between Gaza and Egypt, which used to count 200,000 inhabitants prior to the war, now is full of displaced people. According to UN organizations, there's 1.25 million Palestinians that are living, crammed in that city, in the southern tip of the Gaza Strip. Further north, in Ghaniunas, four or five IDF brigades operate in the heart of Ghaniunas and on its outskirts. There is a pinpoint operation going on for a couple of days in Kherbet El-Khuzaa, which is on the eastern outskirts of Ghaniunas, just on the border with the Israeli territory, just a kilometer and a half or a mile from Niroz. Kibbutz Niroz was the site of maybe the worst massacre in October 7, when half of the population of this community, where this was either killed, massacred, or kidnapped and taken hostage to the Gaza Strip, Further north, in the central sector of the Gaza Strip, there is the 36th Brigade, which is operating on the eastern outskirts of the refugee camp of El-Burej. There are three refugee camps in the central area of the Gaza Strip, El-Burej Nusserat and El-Maghazi. Those three refugee camps are now the focus of a ground operation that started last Friday and was confirmed by the IDF the day before yesterday. And further north, in Gaza City, in this direction, you just heard a triple outgoing of artillery shells on the Gaza Strip. In Gaza City, Al-Daraj, Tufaq, two neighborhoods in the heart of Gaza City are being besieged by the 162 Brigade. There is there one Hamas battalion that is intact and the army is trying to take over those two neighborhoods and to annihilate the battalion of Hamas. And Pierre, CNN reporting about a video circulating online which appears to show Palestinian men stripped and detained by IDF in a Gaza stadium. For our viewers, please explain why this is necessary, the security precaution. Well, each time that the IDF besieges a school or a clinic or a hospital, and after that siege, people are surrendering. And the Israeli army is filtering, especially the mail that have been encircled and that have surrendered. Many of them are terrorists in civilian clothes. Others are just residents that we're seeking shelter. And what we know is that usually the IDF extract those people and ask them to take off at least their upper clothes to show their chest because they fear that there is a suicide bombing vest hidden beneath the closers. Now, the problem is that, of course, this is shown as a sign of humiliation. This is interpreted as a sign of humiliation by the international media or by the Palestinians themselves. So the IDF has decided not to strip, usually not to strip, the people that are being arrested and interrogated in order to preserve their dignity. But given that, they have to take the clothes on their upper body in order to show that they do not conceal weapons. And this is probably what happened. I'm not aware of that particular incident. But this is the kind of scenes that we've seen each time that after a prolonged siege on a sensitive site, which could be a humanitarian site, the army is trying to extract those people, interrogate them, arrest the terrorists, and send them to Israeli jails for further interrogation on Israeli territory. Yeah, Kuleshander, thank you very much for that update from Southern Israel. I want to bring into the conversation Professor Koby Mikhail, he's a senior research fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies and former Deputy Director General of the Israeli Ministry of Strategic Affairs. He joins us from Neziona this morning. Thank you very much for joining us. Good morning. Professor, I want to ask you, more and more soldiers are dying. The current death toll stands at 167 soldiers in just 11 weeks. Talk to us about the complexities on this battlefield, probably one of the most difficult cases of urban warfare. Yes, I've talked about it several times. But I think that the death toll, as much as it's so cynical and brutal to talk in these terms, is still much lower than the expectations, which means that the IDF goes through a learning process which is a very successful learning process. And as far as I notice, in most cases when we are talking about high numbers of casualties and fatalities, this is because of mistakes or because of RPG or explosives that were in the combat zone there. But generally speaking, I think that the numbers are low in comparison to the expectations. And I think that the IDF does all the utmost efforts in order to minimize civilian casualties or collateral damage among the Gazans. And therefore, the IDF works very slowly and very consciously. And the area, generally speaking, is full of tunnels and I would say military compounds of Hamas. And therefore, they have to work step by step. Meanwhile, Egypt is reporting 92 trucks of humanitarian aid and commercial goods entered Gaza on Wednesday. Last week, the UN Security Council approved a resolution calling for urgent steps to immediately allow safe, unhindered and expanded humanitarian access. While Israel today said it is ready to facilitate the expansion of humanitarian aid into Gaza, but it was the UN that was holding things up. Here's Israeli government spokesperson Adon Levy on the issue. UN agencies are currently struggling to distribute aid, at the pace that Israel is inspecting it. That's why yesterday the Kerem Shalom crossing was closed at the request of the United Nations due to logistical constraints on the Gazan side, the crossing. And we hope that the UN will now do a better job of clearing that backlog. Unfortunately, to date, the UN aid mechanism in Gaza has been woefully unsuccessful because it goes through UNRWA. Aid simply isn't reaching the people who needed because Hamas hijacks it and UNRWA covers up for it. Professor, I want to get your reaction there. Israeli government spokesperson Adon Levy confirming yesterday's IDF-recorded call between an officer and a Gazan who reported Hamas controls everything in the strip, including UN humanitarian organization UNRWA. Yes, and I totally agree. And unfortunately, the international community, including Israel, by the way, the official Israel, refuse to internalize these basic facts, not today, not during the war, but much longer time before the war. And I published a very comprehensive research together with my colleague at the INSS, Mikhail Rachevsky, that dealt exactly with that issue, that dealt with UNRWA and the problems with regard to this organization, which is totally controlled by Hamas in the Gaza Strip. And I thought that this organization was born in sin, and it exists in sin. And this organization must be dismantled as soon as possible. And Professor, shifting from the South to the North, this is the second time Iran backed militias in Iraq target Israel this time. Succeeding in hitting a building in the Golan Heights Israeli War Cabinet member, Benny Gantz, says the situation on the northern border with Lebanon and Syria demands change. And that time is running out to reach a diplomatic solution. Yes, and I think that today, in comparison to yesterday, we are a step closer to a broader war or a full scale war with Hezbollah and with the Iranian militias in South Syria. I think that the situation continue the terror rating. I think that the collisions are more intensive. And the idea that there is no any horizon for the residents of the North to come back to their homes. I think that all of these circumstances, together with the growing Iranian motivation to the terror rate situation as a revenge, maybe because of what happened in Syria several days ago. I think that all of these circumstances are taking us a step closer to a full scale war in the North and front. Professor Kobi, Mikhail, thank you very much for joining us this morning with your insight. Thank you, good morning. Turning to the months that led up to October 7th, there were nine months, 2023, before that fateful day in which the angst that hovered over the US-Israel relationship centered on Israel's judicial overhaul and how the Biden administration and American society saw it. But then came October 7th and swept all that away. Senior diplomatic correspondent Owen Alterman takes a look not only at how US-Israel ties have weathered the storm of the war, but also on the warning signs going forward. The fleeting moment that encapsulates a year, a president from the silent generation speaking up on the legacy of the American bond with Israel, the chaos of war afoot, the chaos on the campuses to come, and an 80-year-old president left to stand by the status quo. Israel has the right to respond. Indeed, has a duty to respond to these vicious attacks, atrocities, I've been sickening where with Israel. Let's make no mistake. The most passionately pro-Israel speech in history, said leading expert Michael Oren, saying that the Jewish people would, quote, always remember and cherish it. And the speech has remained a striking singular memory, swallowed by an unruly reality. The scenes from Gaza that muddled US policy, the scenes from American streets and campuses that devoured the sense of belonging and support that Biden wanted to deliver, with the administration moving soon enough to make clear it wants this war behind it, the series of visits of high-level officials meant to walk Israel toward that end, the message of the Secretary of State from mid-October, and then from the year's end. You may be strong enough on your own to defend yourself, but as long as America exists, you will never, ever have to. It's clear that the conflict will move and needs to move to a lower intensity phase. And Dr. Gay, at Harvard, does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Harvard's rules of bullying and harassment, yes or no? It can be, depending on the context. Error, indignation, indignation. And all the while, the campus is in streets for a wave of angry protests without precedent, for a rising fear of anti-Semitism that few American Jews expected, a crisis for an American Jewish liberalism that had always carefully cultivated the political center, only to now see that political center evaporate, replaced by the angry right and the angry left. Our tax dollars have gone to fund colonization, apartheid, crimes against humanity, and we're sick of it. The people want Palestinian liberation. We unequivocally don't equate our colonizers with the colonized or the occupiers with the occupied. Oppressed people have a right to resist and defend themselves by any means necessary. And so the story of 2023 is less about a heroic older president and more about the young generation that will inherit him. Poll after poll has shown the protests are not in aberration. America's Gen Z does not like Israel, does not like Biden, and may not like the political center. The problem is so big and so much about America that Israel may not be able to solve it. Numbers that could one day put the US-Israel alliance in danger. Numbers that Israel might not be able to reverse. A message for 2024 and for the uncertain decades ahead. So with me here in studio, senior correspondent Owen Alterman. Owen, first of all, I want to congratulate you on that piece because that really an attempt to summarize this ball of a mess that we're seeing here. I want to go back though to pre-October 7th. The political division here in Israel that was felt also abroad. But we're seeing during this war at least major unity come together in Israel and saying most Israelis saying, yes, we were divided but we will deal with all of that after the war right now is the time for unity. Right, the curious case of the first nine months of the year, Sarah, you're summing up 2023 in the US-Israel relationship. And what do you do with those nine months? They happened, we felt them, we thought that they were tumultuous. We thought those months were a big deal, right? We thought it was a big deal, we thought it was a big deal for the US-Israel relationship. And then came the massacres and the war and the campuses and the polls and all the rest. And you're doing a recap of the year 2023 in US-Israel relations and you have to think about what to do with those first nine months. And my decision was to erase them, right? They didn't appear in the report at all. And I think that was the right decision because they were just washed away by everything that happened over the past three months. They may have some legacy coming back later, right? The questions about Israel's society and the balance between the judiciary and the legislature popping back into our news over the last day or so, the last 12 hours even. And those debates have not obviously been resolved. They've been put on hold, as you said. And the impact of those debates in the US-Israel relationship also in a sense not resolved and put on hold. But the reality is when you talk about Israel's relationship with the United States and Israel's relationship with the American public and the American society, I think the event of this war in some senses, Sarah, maybe can be argued. The most important event in the last 75 years of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it just dwarfs everything that came before it in this year. And in a sense, everything that came before it in previous years. And so it, I think, has defined the US-Israel relationship in 2023, when all is said and done, at least sitting here right on December 28th. And it looks to have an impact potentially going forward, right? Crystallizing and accelerating trends that have already been in place. And we can talk about what those trends are, what those trends aren't, and what that all means. And what those trends will be because we are ahead of just another election in the United States. We're seeing more and more anti-Israel protests, just yesterday, dozens arrested, both at LAX and JFK. We're seeing rising anti-Semitism on American college campuses. It's very concerning, obviously for American jewelry there, but it's also concerning for Israel in its relationship with the US. And will it continue to enjoy that support from whatever administration is to come? Sara, this is the number one, number one biggest issue in Israeli foreign policy and Israeli national security, well, at least Israeli foreign policy in the long term. The number one issue in Israeli foreign policy in the long term is the issue of polling among American 18 to 29 year olds, 18 to 24 year olds, 26 year olds. However, that age group is ultimately defined. And it is an issue that casts a shadow over the entire US-Israel relationship. And in a sense, for all the importance of Blinken and of Biden, and we saw them in that report and they get their time and they must. And the fact of Joe Biden being the US president has had a material impact in the course of the war. This war, Sara, might look different where Joe Biden not president. Instead of him where Donald Trump president, the entire war might look different. Where some other person to be president, other than Joe Biden, the entire war might look different. And the fact that the war looks the way it does is in no small measure because of the person who went up to that podium on October 10th in that speech that we saw at the beginning of the report. But you're absolutely right. Notwithstanding all of that, it's the deeper social trends that are the real issue. By the way, the protesters blocking streets is an odd piece of continuity for Israelis with the first nine months of the year, right? Where roadblocks are such a part of our lives here. But very, very quickly, the numbers among the younger generation are incredibly striking, could really engage the relationship. And we have to do, get much better understanding of what's actually going on because there's a lot we've learned, there's still a lot we don't know. Oh, and Ultraman, thank you very much for your analysis this morning. That's the end of this broadcast. But don't go anywhere. I-24 News will be back at the top of the hour with more rolling coverage of the Israel Hamas War. I'm Sarah Martinez. Thanks for watching. Is in a state of war, families completely done down in their beds. We have no idea where she is. Our soldiers are fighting on the front line, but the general perception is something that certainly needs to be fought as well. Semana, News 24, Israel, bajo ataque. News 24 en español trae el análisis y la información de los acontecimientos de la guerra, espadas de hierro. Entrevistas exclusivas reportes desde la zona de guerra. La reacción de los países hispanoparlantes. News 24, el único medio en español que te mantiene informado y conectado con la comunidad latina en Israel. News 24, únicamente en I-24 News. So, we're seeing the first generation of solar panels now being recycled. What's exciting is, we're at the forefront. What is about to happen is a tsunami of solar panels coming back into the supply chain. You're watching I-24 News. I'm Sarah Martinez, live from Tel Aviv. Today marks the 83rd day of the war as Israel intensifies its ground operation to dismantle Hamas and Gaza. The military announcing this morning the death of three more IDF soldiers killed in combat in the Gaza Strip. The two-year-old major, David Fima, 24-year-old Captain Nerea Zisk and 22-year-old First Class Sergeant in the reserves, Asaf Bin Rastogul. The current death toll of slain Israeli troops killed in just 11 weeks stands at 167. Meanwhile, a major escalation of violence in the north of the country overnight with the military on high alert. IDF Chief of Staff Ertia Levy says the army needs to be ready for a possible attack from the north. Norther in Israeli towns of Roshan Iqran, Kiryat Shmona along the Lebanese border were pummeled by the most intense barrage of rockets since the start of the war Wednesday evening, 34 rockets fired by Hezbollah resulting in a direct hit to a home and damage to a kindergarten. Israel responded to the attacks with airstrikes in southern Lebanon. Still in the north, the southern Golan Heights was the target of a kamikaze drone attack overnight for such attacks since the start of the war. Iran backed militias in Iraq claiming responsibility for the blast that caused damage to a building near the town of Elad, which they say was launched in support of Gaza. With me here in studio is I-24 News senior diplomatic correspondent Owen Alterman. Owen amidst all this violence many diplomatic meetings taking place on the sidelines, most notably Netanyahu holding a phone call with French President Emmanuel Macron who expressed his concern the civilian death toll and as well as the humanitarian emergency facing the civilian population in Gaza. Right, and this is of course coming just two days, Sarah, after the statement from the French presidency about its concern about Israel's war in Gaza as they say and the need for as they put it a ceasefire. So obviously the Israeli government not all that happy, one would imagine with the French position on this. Again, going back weeks, going back of course even before this call the visit by the French foreign minister to Israel a short time ago. But the reality is the Israeli government needs France, needs France on the Lebanese front, right? I think Israel's plan A in terms of trying to move his forces away from the border. France's special relationship in Lebanon means the French government is invested in this issue, will want to show success in this issue and it's possible that France's success in Lebanon is Israel's success as well. So the Israeli government and Israel's prime minister having to a sense hold their nose and listen to whatever Macron has to say about the Gaza war because Israel does want to read out from the Israeli prime minister's office ending with what we've become accustomed to in these readouts of calls with foreign leaders, Sarah, the determination of the Israeli public to change the security situation in the south and in the north such that Israelis can move back to their homes in those two arenas. Meanwhile Jordan's King Abdullah and Egyptian President Sisi meeting in Cairo where they discussing the war pardon Gaza after the war specifically they announced the rejection of any Israeli move to expel Palestinians in Gaza in the West Bank but that was never on the table, Owen. Look, on one hand it's a straw man but on the other hand, Sarah, we know that there are people in Israel talking about this in one way or another, right? Voluntary migration or what not and Gazans leaving the Gaza Strip to other places. We know obviously the sensitivity to this in Egypt. We've seen the Egyptian policy on the border especially in those first weeks of the war when the border closed even to foreign nationals. Remember how much tension that caused between Egypt and other countries. This is the primal fear of the Egyptian government and for that matter the Jordanian government too. Obviously geographically Jordan is in a direct sense less concerned about the Gaza Strip but obviously concerned about a precedent that would be set in a doomsday scenario for the West Bank so you're right, obviously the fear is exaggerated but the paranoia is there but we've seen so many extreme events over the course of the past few months in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that these two leaders want to get from their perspective get out in front of this issue although I agree with you, this is not something that's about to happen. Right. Remember there were discussions possibly of having those Gazan civilians moved temporarily to Egypt. Right. In order to minimize civilian casualties during the bombings but obviously Egypt obviously doesn't want to take on that responsibility as you mentioned. And also US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken expected to arrive in Israel this week. Yeah, late next week according to the Axios website. Obviously no shortage of items on the agenda as ever a kind of check-in visit one would imagine for the US Secretary of State. Look the general lines and general trajectory of American policy hasn't changed Sarah but Blinken I assume will want to come here to be able to speak to the Israeli leadership directly and to speak to the public directly and of course as with diplomatic visits in general the symbolism of the visit is important as well the US wanting to be seen around the Middle East and around the world as active as working to try to from the perspective of the other countries and from the Biden administration itself in a sense restrain the Israeli military operation at the sensitive point where it's moving to use the language of the Biden administration from the high intensity to the low intensity phase. So Blinken I think will want to be seen here as being involved in the diplomacy according to that report also expected to go to the West Bank to Saudi Arabia the UAE and Qatar so obviously other stops in line with his past trips with entity Blinken's past trips to the region. So in terms of exactly the specifics again I think in a general sense the trajectory of US policy hasn't changed the specifics again of where the war stands and where the war will stand next week at the time of the visit and how quickly I think we may get a sense the US wants to see this transition. Oh and stay with me I want to cross over to his correspondent Pierre Kloschenler he's in southern Israel Pierre what's the latest in the ground operation? Well it's very difficult to distinguish what's going on with the naked eye because the fog the morning fog adds up to the fog of war that the IDF has imposed on its operations in the central and southern sector of the Gaza Strip but I'll try to decipher what's going on right now you see behind that range of hills this is about four kilometers from where we are and this is the southern sector of the of Gaza city and right now they are fighting you can hear maybe the artillery outgoing they're not shooting blindly on to the Gaza Strip they get coordinates from the ground forces that are operating in the area identify a presumed target and as a result pass the coordinate to the artillery and the artillery shoots maybe a floor of a building maybe a window of a building where a sniper is hidden and that's the way it's operating right now now in Rafa Palestinian media affiliated to Hamas say that there have been aerial strikes just on the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt on Gaza territory they claim that of displaced Palestinians have burnt it's difficult to verify but we know that this city on the border between Gaza and Egypt which used to count 200,000 inhabitants prior to the war now is full of displaced people according to UN organizations there's 25 million Palestinians that are living crammed in that city in the southern tip of the Gaza Strip further north in Ghaniunas four or five IDF brigades operate in the heart of Ghaniunas and on its outskirts there is a pinpoint operation going on for a couple of days in Kherbet El Chouda'a which is on the eastern outskirts just on the border with the Israeli territory just a kilometer and a half or a mile from Niroz Kibbutz Niroz was the site of maybe the worst massacre in October 7 when half of the population of this community was either killed massacred or kidnapped and taken hostage to the Gaza Strip further north in the central sector of the Gaza Strip there is the 36 brigade which is operating on the eastern outskirts of the refugee camp of El Burej there are three refugee camps in the central area of the Gaza Strip El Burej Nusrat and El Maghazi those three refugee camps are now the focus of a ground operation that started last Friday of the day before yesterday and further north in Gaza City in this direction you just heard a triple outgoing of artillery shells on the Gaza Strip in Gaza City al-Daraj to Fah two neighborhoods in the heart of Gaza City are being besieged by the by the 162 brigade there is there one Hamas battalion that is intact and the army is trying to take over those two neighborhoods and to annihilate the battalion of Hamas and Pierre, CNN reporting about a video circulating online which appears to show Palestinian men stripped and detained by IDF in a Gaza stadium for our viewers please explain why this is necessary the security precaution each time that the IDF besieges a school or a clinic or a hospital and after that siege people are surrendering and the Israeli army is filtering especially the mail that have been encircled and that have surrendered many of them are terrorists in civilian clothes others are just residents that were seeking shelter and what we know is that usually the IDF extract those people and ask them to take off at least their upper clothes to show their chest because they fear that there is a suicide bombing vest hidden behind the beneath the closers now the problem is that of course this is shown as a sign of humiliation this is interpreted as a sign of humiliation by the international media or by the Palestinians themselves so the IDF has decided not to strip usually not to strip the people that are being arrested and interrogated in order to preserve their dignity but given that they have to take the clothes on their upper body in order to show that they do not conceal weapons and this is probably what happened I'm not aware of that particular incident but this is the kind of scenes that we've seen each time that after a prolonged siege on a sensitive site which could be a humanitarian site the army is trying to extract those people interrogate them, arrest the terrorists and send them to Israeli jails for further interrogation on Israeli territory Thank you very much for that update from Southern Israel I want to bring into the conversation Professor Koby Michal he's a senior research fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies and former deputy director general the Israeli ministry of strategic affairs he joins us from Nesiona this morning thank you very much for joining us Good morning Professor I want to ask you more and more soldiers are dying the current death toll stands at 167 soldiers in just 11 weeks talk to us about the complexities on this battlefield probably one of the most difficult cases of urban warfare Yes I've talked about it several times but I think that the death toll as much as it's so cynical and brutal to talk in these terms is still much lower than the expectations which means that the IDF is going through a learning process which is a very successful learning process and as far as I know this in most cases when we are talking about high numbers of casualties and fatalities this is because of mistakes or because of RPG or explosives that were in the combat zone there but generally speaking I think that the numbers are low in comparison to the expectations and I think that the IDF does all the utmost efforts in order to minimize civilian casualties among collateral damage among the Gazans and therefore the IDF works very slowly and very cautiously and the area generally speaking is full of tunnels and I would say military compounds of Hamas and therefore they have to work step by step Meanwhile Egypt is reporting 92 trucks of humanitarian aid and commercial goods entered Gaza on Wednesday last week the UN Security Council approved a resolution calling for urgent steps to immediately allow safe unhindered and expanded humanitarian access Israel today said it is ready to facilitate the expansion of humanitarian aid into Gaza but it was the UN that was holding things up here's Israeli government spokesperson Adon Levy on the issue UN agencies are currently struggling to distribute aid at the pace that Israel is inspecting it the Kerem Shalom crossing was closed at the request of the United Nations due to logistical constraints on the Gazan side of the crossing and we hope that the UN will now do a better job of clearing that backlog unfortunately to date the UN aid mechanism in Gaza has been woefully unsuccessful because it goes through UNRA aid simply isn't reaching the people who need it because Hamas hijacks it and UNRA covers up for it Professor I want to get your reaction there Israeli government spokesperson Adon Levy confirming yesterday's IDF recorded call between an officer and a Gazan who reported Hamas controls everything in the strip including UN humanitarian organization UNRA Yes and I totally agree and unfortunately the international community including Israel by the way the the official Israel refused to internalize these basic basic facts not today and not during the war but much a longer time before the war and I published a very comprehensive research together with my colleague at the INSS Mikhail Orocheski that was that dealt exactly with that issue that dealt with UNRA and the problems with regard to this organization which is totally controlled by Hamas in the Gaza Strip and I thought that this organization was born in sin and it exists in sin and this organization must be dismantled as soon as possible Professor shifting from the south to the north this is the second time Iran backed militias in Iraq target Israel this time succeeding in hitting a building in the Golan Heights Israeli War Cabinet member Benny Gantz on the northern border with Lebanon and Syria demands change and that time is running out to reach a diplomatic solution Yes and I think that today in comparison to yesterday we are a step closer to a broader war or a full scale war with Hezbollah and with the Iranian militias in south Syria I think that the situation continue deteriorating I think that the collisions are more intensive and the idea that there is no any horizon for the residents of the north to come back to their homes I think that all of these circumstances together with the growing Iranian motivation to the terrorist situation as a revenge maybe because of what happened in Syria several days ago I think that all of these circumstances are taking us a step closer to a full scale war in the northern front Professor Kobi, Michael thank you very much for joining us this morning with your insight Thank you, good morning Turning to the months that led up to October 7th, there were nine months 2023 before that fateful day during which the angst that hovered over the US-Israel relationship centered on Israel's judicial overhaul and how the Biden administration and American society saw it but then came October 7th and swept all that away senior diplomatic correspondent Owen Alterman takes a look not only at how US-Israel ties have weathered the storm of the war but also on the warning signs going forward The fleeting moment that encapsulates a year a president from the silent generation speaking up on the legacy of the American bond with Israel the chaos of war afoot the chaos on the campuses to come and an 80-year-old president left to stand by the status quo Israel has the right to respond indeed has a duty to respond to these vicious attacks atrocities I've been sickening where is Israel let's make no mistake The most passionately pro-Israel speech in history has been expressed by the Jewish people always remember and cherish it and the speech has remained a striking singular memory swallowed by an unruly reality the scenes from Gaza that muddled US policy the scenes from American streets and campuses that devoured the sense of belonging and support that Biden wanted to deliver with the administration moving soon enough to make clear that he wants this war behind it the series of visits of high-level officials meant to walk Israel toward that end the message of the Secretary of State from mid-October and then from the year's end you may be strong enough on your own to defend yourself but as long as America exists you will never ever have to it's clear that the conflict will move and needs to move to a new phase and Dr. Gay at Harvard does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Harvard's rules of bullying and harassment yes or no it can be depending on the context and all the while the campus isn't streets for a wave of angry protests without precedent for a rising fear of anti-Semitism that few American Jews expected a crisis for an American Jewish liberalism that had always carefully cultivated the political center only to now see that political center evaporate replaced by the angry right and the angry left our tax dollars have gone to fund colonization apartheid crimes against humanity and we're sick of it the people want Palestinian liberation we unequivocally don't equate our colonizers with the colonized or the occupiers with the occupied oppressed people have a right to resist by any means necessary and so the story of 2023 is less about a heroic older president and more about the young generation that will inherit him poll after poll has shown the protests are not in aberration America's Gen Z does not like Israel does not like Biden and may not like the political center the problem is so big and so much about America that Israel may not be able to solve it could one day put the US-Israel alliance in danger numbers that Israel might not be able to reverse a message for 2024 and for the uncertain decades ahead so with me here in studio senior correspondent Owen Alterman first of all I want to congratulate you on that piece because that really in an attempt to summarize this ball of a mess that we're seeing here to go to pre-October 7th the political division here in Israel that was felt also abroad but we're seeing during this war at least major unity come together in Israel and saying most Israelis saying yes we were divided but we will deal with all of that after the war right now is the time for unity the curious case of the first nine months of the year Sarah you're summing up 2023 in the US-Israel relationship and what do you do with those nine months they happened we felt them we thought that they were tumultuous we thought those months were a big deal we thought it was a big deal we thought it was a big deal for the US-Israel relationship and then came the massacres and the war and the campuses and the polls and all the rest and you're doing a recap of the year 2023 in US-Israel relations and you have to think about what to do with those first nine months and my decision was to erase them they didn't appear in the report at all and I think that was the right decision because they were just washed away by everything that happened over the past three months they may have some legacy coming back later right the questions about Israel's society and the balance between the judiciary and the legislature popping back into our news over the last day or so the last 12 hours even but and those debates have not obviously been resolved they've been put on hold as you said and the impact of those debates in the US-Israel relationship also in a sense not resolved and put on hold but the reality is when you talk about Israel's relationship with the United States and Israel's relationship with the American public and the American society I think the event of this war in some senses Sarah maybe can be argued the most important event in the last 75 years of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict it just dwarfs everything that came before it this year and in a sense it came before it in previous years and so it I think has defined the US-Israel relationship in 2023 when all is said and done at least sitting here right on December 28th and it looks to have an impact potentially going forward right crystallizing and accelerating trends that have already been in place and we can talk about what those trends are what those trends aren't and what that all means those trends will be because we are ahead of just another election in the United States we're seeing more and more anti-Israel protests just yesterday dozens arrested both at LAX and JFK we're seeing rising anti-Semitism on American college campuses it's very concerning for obviously for American jewelry there but it's also concerning for Israel in its relationship with the US and will it continue to enjoy that support from whatever administration is to come? Sarah this is the number one biggest issue in Israeli foreign policy and Israeli national security well at least Israeli foreign policy in the long term the number one issue in Israeli foreign policy in the long term is the issue of polling among American 18 to 29 year olds, 18 to 24 year olds 26 year olds however that age group is ultimately defined and it is an issue that casts a shadow over the entire US-Israel relationship and in a sense for all the importance of Blinken and of Biden and we saw them in that report and they get their time and they must and the fact of Joe Biden being the US president has had a material impact on the course of the war this war Sarah might look different where Joe Biden not president instead of in where Donald Trump president the entire war might look different where some other person to be president other than Joe Biden the entire war might look different and the fact that the war does is in no small measure because of the person who went up to that podium on October 10th in that speech that we saw at the beginning of the report but you're absolutely right not withstanding all of that it's the deeper social trends that are the real issue by the way the protesters blocking streets is an odd piece of continuity for Israelis with the first nine months of the year right where roadblocks are such a part of our lives here but very very quickly the numbers among the younger generation are incredibly striking could really endanger the relationship you much make it much better understanding what's actually going on because there's a lot we've learned there's still a lot we don't know Oh and I'll turn and thank you very much for your analysis this morning that's the end of this broadcast but don't go anywhere I-24 News will be back at the top of the hour with more rolling coverage of the Israel Hamas war I'm Sarah Martinez, thanks for watching Israel is in a state of war families completely done down in their beds we have no idea where is she as our soldiers are fighting on the front line but the general perception is something that certainly needs to to be fought as well you're watching I-24 News I'm Sarah Martinez live from Tel Aviv today marks the 83rd day of the war as Israel intensifies its ground operation to dismantle Hamas in Gaza the military announcing this morning the death of three more IDF soldiers killed in combat in the Gaza Strip 32-year-old Major Dvir David Fima 24-year-old Captain Neriya Zisk and 22-year-old 1st class sergeant in the reserves the current death toll of slain Israeli troops killed in just 11 weeks stands at 167 meanwhile major escalation of violence in the north of the country overnight with the military on high alert IDF Chief of Staff El Tialebe says the army needs to be ready for a possible attack from the north the northern Israeli towns of Roshani Kran Kiryat Shmonar along the Lebanese border were pummeled by the most intense terror of rockets since the start of the war Wednesday evening 34 rockets fired by Hezbollah resulting in a direct hit to a home and damage to a kindergarten Israel responded to the attacks with airstrikes in southern Lebanon still in the north the southern Golan Heights was the target of a kamikaze drone attack overnight Iran backed militias in Iraq claiming responsibility for the blast that caused damage to a building near the town of Elad which was launched in support of Gaza let's cross over to I-24 news correspondent Pierre Kloschenler he's in southern Israel Pierre what's the latest in the ground operation there well I'm going to show you with Igor Bazilenko what we cannot see actually because the morning fog is adding up to the fog of war that the IDF has imposed on its operations in the Gaza Strip the focus right now on camera the southern and central sector of the Gaza Strip where there's been aerial strikes overnight including drone strikes on a target presumed terror target in Rafah on the border town between Egypt and the Gaza Strip on the southern tip of the Gaza Strip we've seen video by Palestinian media affiliated to Hamas of a camp of tents displaced people that is burning what we know is that Rafah used to be a city of 200,000 inhabitants before the war and now there's about a million and a quarter of displaced people that are cramped into this city so it's very difficult for the IDF to pinpoint targets in this area further north in the eastern outskirts of Hamas there are fighting an IDF brigade is operating in that area which is really sitting on the border with Israel facing Kibbutz near Oz which was the site of maybe the worst massacre in October 7 where half of the population of this community where these are either massacred or kidnapped into the Gaza Strip inside Hanyunes there are three or four additional IDF brigades operating around Hanyunes and in Hanyunes itself with the 98 commando brigade which is operating at the heart of Hanyunes they're uncovering a lot of tunnel shafts, uncovering tunnels where the estimate of the IDF is that the political leadership and the military leadership of Hamas are hiding in Hanyunes further north in the central sector of the Gaza Strip the 36th brigade of the IDF is right now operating on the eastern outskirts of the refugee camp of El Burej there have been strikes in the refugee camp of Nusserat as well as in El Mraz and further north the 162 brigade is operating in the heart of Gaza City in Tufah al-Daraj Thank you very much for that update from Southern Israel the IDF has recently discovered and destroyed three terror tunnel shafts belonging to Hamas near the Rantisi hospital and a nearby girls high school in the northern part of the Gaza Strip the tunnel shafts dozens of meters deep are connected by an underground network several kilometers passing under the hospital and leading to the heart of Gaza City take a look in terms of our operations here this house served as a Hamas unit between the size of a cell and a squad you can see the quantity of uniforms you can see detonators and improvised explosive devices here improvised explosive devices ready to be used face masks, equipment for hand everything in kidnapping medical equipment, weapons and many munition magazines mortars, study materials and here you can see equipment for tunnels whether it's shovels for digging or cables the black cable that can be seen comes from the community center and passes here through the house leading to the tunnel and joining me in studio is all Jesus Chal he's the head of the research departments thank you very much for joining me this morning the idea has been progressively destroying these Hamas tunnels used for terror activities but what's the military strategy for the tunnels in Hanyunis where Hamas is believed to be holding the 129 Israeli captives hostage well I think the tunnels, the underground network is the major, the major challenge in this war and to be honest not only the tunnels inside the Gaza thinking about the day after in Gaza we have to keep not only the parameter that is let's say 1 km deep above ground a parameter where no civilian no Gaza is allowed to get anywhere near the border with Israel but also the underground network we know that these underground networks served as attack tunnels not just defensive tunnels but attack tunnels toward Israel and the smuggling tunnels underneath the Gaza Egypt border so I think the more the IDF unravels and discovers these tunnels underneath Gaza the more the let's say the size and magnitude of the challenge is becoming clear I think Hanyunis is a major focal point where Sinwar is reported to be surrounded by hostages in tunnels we don't know if that's true but these are the reports they're all conflict reports and we don't know where all the hostages are being held but I do think that once the Hanyunis tunnel network is being taken over this is a major turning point in the war that can really turn the needle I want to ask you we're seeing more and more soldiers die the decimal now at 167 talk to us about the complexity of this battlefield as you mentioned the tunnels we know that there's hostages unfortunately that was that tragic accident where three hostages were killed by IDF forces this is probably one of the most difficult cases of urban warfare absolutely and you know the constant messaging and statements every day it's only Israelis who know the feeling to open their phones at 637am and just pray for no messages, no names of soldiers and we see the list of soldiers keeping piling up I visited the time where the family bereaves the fallen soldier and I saw in several of them an uplifting ambience I was shocked because you see the families really take the will of the fallen soldiers to the fallen son to tell them keep living don't sink in grief I entered one of the homes and they were simply literally singing there with guitars the songs that he loved listening to I think this is part of the Israeli being the Israeli ambience but also I think this is precisely the reason why Israel avoided these kind of operations these kinds of wars in Gaza in the first place and preferred to keep some sort of a balance between Israel and Hamas but now let's say the victory was imposed on Israel and it had no other choice and this is the goal to go until the end existential war I think this is the comprehension that we're living in I want to ask you when should we expect Israel to shift to the next phase of the war that phase that the Biden administration has been pushing for Israel to reduce its ground operation in Gaza and focus on more high target Hamas operatives I think in the coming months or maybe in the coming weeks this looks like there are reportedly four or five, six brigades operating in the Gaza Strip this is huge I don't think anyone for sure in the idea of serving today neither reservists nor active duty has experienced any such thing in the past I think the last time we saw such a thing was the Yom Kippur war precisely 50 years to the date before October 7 maybe October 6 but still and I think the next stage will have to be purifying in the military slaying clearing the area from terrorist, let's say hornest nests who are still around the pockets of resistance right now I think the next challenges will be and of course the Philadelphia route and we heard some reports from minister that it is not the intention to take over them in this stage I don't know if that's the case because from what I see the idea continues to advance and this is exactly what should be complete Israeli control over the Gaza Strip and when you say that especially when we're talking about Gaza after the war what are the different plans on the table here and what does the Israeli government want to do with Gaza? well the day after in Gaza is a challenge I'm not saying it's not to be honest there are two levels here the security level and the political level or the civil level the security level I think absolutely Israel has to over the entire Gaza Strip let's be very clear about it Israel has been avoiding in October 7 in Judea and Samaria thanks to an constant daily IDF activity arresting nearly 3,000 terrorists in two months it's a record number and killing nearly 300 of suspected terrorists so I think this is what should be happening in Gaza complete frame of operation maintaining the parameter on the fence the underground and the border with Egypt so called Philadelphia route no goods enter Gaza until an Israeli eye has watched them and surveyed them and next the civil level I think Israel should allow Palestinians to maintain local directorates or local municipalities to run everyday lives to find people who have nothing to do with neither Hamas nor Fatah any of the current political factions among the Palestinians and but to make sure that any international aid is conditioned upon denazification of the Gaza Strip in the education system in the media to really uproot the evil of the Nazi Hamas ideology in the education system in the public consciousness and I think this is has to be conditioned before any international aid comes to reconstruct the Gaza Strip. Meanwhile Egypt is reporting 92 trucks of a humanitarian aid and commercial goods have entered Gaza last week the UN Security Council approved a resolution calling for urgent steps to immediately allow safe unhindered and expanded humanitarian access. Israel says it's ready to facilitate the expansion of humanitarian aid into Gaza but it was the UN that was holding things up. Take a listen to Israeli government spokesperson Adon Levy. UN agencies are currently struggling to distribute aid at the pace that Israel is inspecting it. That's why yesterday the Kerem Shalom crossing was closed at the request of the United Nations due to logistical constraints on the Gazan side of the crossing and we hope that the UN will now do a better job of protecting the Gaza Strip. The UN has been successfully evacuated from the Gaza Strip. Unfortunately to date the UN aid mechanism in Gaza has been woefully unsuccessful because it goes through UNRWA. Aids simply isn't reaching the people who needed because Hamas hijacks it and UNRWA covers up for it. So with me here in studio I want to we just heard Israel government spokesperson talk about the importance of the Gaza Strip. Well I think we saw over the years is Hamas building up its force. The question is how did so much ammunition and missiles ended up in the Gaza Strip. So a lot of it is self production that we know but we also see a vast network of tunnels underneath the Rafah crossing underneath the Philadelphia Rafah crossing connecting Gaza to Egypt. Exactly and I think Israel will have to maintain control on this area in order to protect the Gaza Strip. We have we see Iran funding the vast majority of the Hamas budget and funding I think almost $360 million per year something crazy and I think this is precisely the reason why Iran is the root of the so called evil in the Gaza Strip in Hezbollah Houthis in Yemen and so on. This is part of a strategy by the Iranian regime to export the revolution pouring billions of dollars around the Middle East with ammunition and only chance would be Iranian production. So I think Hamas is committed to the let's say Iran's Shiite access without being Shiite is committed to the Iran access and I think at the end of the day Israel will have to stop the let's say militarization of the Gaza Strip by controlling this passage. Shifting from the south to the north now the second time that Iran back militias attempt to target Israel this time they succeeded in hitting a building in the Golan Heights is really work on a member Benny Gantz is saying the situation on the border in Lebanon needs to change that we're running out of time for any sort of diplomatic solution here. I think everybody says including Prime Minister Netanyahu and Minister Gallant and Minister Gantz even Chief of Staff Alevi I think understand that at the end of the day the situation in the north cannot be the same as it was but I want to make it clear because speaking to people in the political and military echelon I don't think anyone is rushing to war on the contrary I think people want to avoid war as much as possible because we understand this Israel's interest to focus on the Gaza Strip right now and the understanding of the gravity of the price the magnitude of the price with a war with Hezbollah it's not as if Israel cannot win this war decisively of course it can but the question is what's the preference right now if this crisis can be solved in other means including French and American pressure it's preferable to Israel at this point but at some point we'll have to tell the truth to ourselves to the US to France the international community as much as we could not we we have become disillusioned with the strategy of containment with Hamas in the Gaza Strip we cannot contain Hezbollah in the north it just cannot be the case and Hezbollah will make us forget October 7 if they launch such an attack on Israel they have massive forces over 150,000 missiles 20,000 regiment forces so I think at this point we'll have to maneuver but at some point next year in two years we'll have to take on Hezbollah in the north we have absolutely no other choice and very briefly Palestinian media reporting one Palestinian killed in 14 injured in clashes with IDA troops in an overnight raid in Ramallah tell me a little bit about the escalating violence there in the West Bank well I'm in contact actually with soldiers fighting there and I gotta tell you they're doing a magnificent job arresting terrorists every night yesterday Noor Shams near Tulkarm very close to the Sharon area in Central Israel they arrested terrorists with ammunitions including mortar fire including M16 ammunition that we don't usually see in Judea Samaria the rocket threat is usually how are those weapons getting there exactly so first self-production that is that's the reason why they're not that sophisticated and two importing from Iran to be honest through the Jordanian border it is not hermetically sealed there are multiple of smuggling through the Jordanian river so Jordanian border every year and I think the IDF and the police managed to thwart some of them with the Yagel unit of the police and the border guard and so on but at the end of the day the notion that we can simply let the Palestinian Authority control the Ramallah Tulkarm Janine Nablus without the IDF intervening has been proven false in the 1990s in the 2000s and this is probably why Defensive Shield Khomet again in Hebrew was launched in 2002 and I think we'll have no other choice but to keep maintaining IDF troops operating on the ground there thank you very much for your analysis and insight this morning thank you a new project led by the Israel Antiquities Authority and other bodies aims to document and preserve the destruction of the Gaza envelope before a massive rebuild is done in the area I-24 news reporter Uri Shapira archaeology is often used to document and preserve items from the ancient history this time it's being used to do the same thing to something which occurred only a few months ago the Hamas onslaught of October 7 this is a massive project I think it must be the biggest and most complex project ever undertaken in Israel of this nature I would say furthermore that it's complex in as much as it is very integrated from the technological point of view but added to that there is this tremendous sense of urgency everything has to be done at the best possible level at the fastest possible time with the greatest possible sensitivity it's a joint project of the Israeli Antiquities Authority the Ministry of Heritage and the Khuma administration a special body which was established after October 7 the main goal is to document the devastation of the Gaza envelope area we create a base a 3D very detailed base for the memory for the virtual museum that will happen for many many other uses of the 3D model after those the buildings here would be demolished we'll have the exact copy of those buildings in the computer and we can build our memory on top of that second is the the evidence that we create the 3D model of those buildings which is really really accurate would be an evidence that can be used either in court or either in the public domain in the social media to confront the claim that didn't happen which is already happening and I think the third main objective is to be a warning sign what happens is extremely religious is attacking you is confronting you in the most brutal way the project is taking place in several main locations in the Gaza envelope Kibbutz near Oz is one of the places which suffer the most from the Hamas attack the group consisting of cameraman archaeologists and experts is using advanced technologies to get the best possible results with new methods of photography first high resolution cameras Sony cameras for very high resolution 61 megapixel cameras we're using drones to take photos from above and we are also using LiDAR scanners it's a laser for the best resolution and we merge all these technologies together to get the best model that we can get the first house the team is walking on belongs to the Akir family managed to survive the attack after they escaped and hid in a safe room adjacent to the house Ron Bahat, resident of near Oz says that despite the sensitivity of the issue he believes in the value of this project something happened here that never happened before I think it is significant to commemorate it I think that some of those who have been here don't fully understand the importance of documenting the event for the next generations on the one hand there is a call to rebuild the kibbutz and bring life to what it was before on the other hand it is clear that it is important to show what happened here it is clear that some of the people are not even at this stage of thinking ahead of the story this burned structure was the local kindergarten of near Oz we can still see traces of the life that was here before the fire such as happy new year cards made only two weeks before the attack the 3D model tries to give one the opportunity to tour this site which is inaccessible to most people as you can see it is all black it is all burned it is really hard to see what we do is we use a bright flash in the photograph basically we shoot the whole area with the digital camera from all the areas around to give a clear view of every feature that we see and you can see it in the model later on there were no people here because it was Saturday morning so the kindergarten was left as it is and you can see the ash layer it is set on the tables and all the stuff our next stop is the house of Oded and Yocheved Lifshitz close to the Kibbutz fence the elderly couple was abducted to Gaza and only Yocheved has so far returned photographer Maya Hadash tells us about her personal interest in this project which is different from most of her walk it is a very technical work I always need to understand the 360 perspective of the building and what is the drone getting from above and what I need to complete how can I complete the drone from different angles also from ground level and up level and also inside this also question between observation and voyeurism in recent weeks we have seen hundreds of people come to view the broken houses of the Gaza border something that may be disturbing for some and significant and meaningful for others I mean you got to see it it is like everything bad that happens to the Jewish people you need to record it it is like the camps in World War II where the pogroms happened it is like you need to preserve some of it the next stage is to collect the data and create a 3D model and maps this is done at the IAA headquarters in Jerusalem the process goes like this we have experts who collect data in the field all the data is downloaded to the system and here is where we analyze and start modeling we have a huge amount to date for example here we can check which structure was documented for example here in this map I can see each house and check if it was documented and at which level of documentation it is so it is like a relay race there are people who collect data people who receive the data those who process it and those who builds the model each stage depends on the other stage using this application helps us to see the process and to verify that nothing gets lost on the way it is still unclear what the final usage of this project will be on which platform it will be shown and whether it will be available to the wider public Professor Moshe Kane from the Hadassah academic college also talks about the ethical and social questions such as the possibility that people will regard the project as akin to a video game people who wish to deny will deny we are living in an age of artificial intelligence of fake reality, fake news people who want to say that it is not real they will say it we are all familiar with the various 3D games which are created at the highest level of realism but the same technologies can be used for much more serious and much more important historical documentation this project may also improve the current process of modeling and documenting historic sites says project manager David Zell the building that we have that were attacked have a lot of many many small details so we need to use even higher resolution and better technologies than we use normally and we decide to be able to actually create 3D models of all the small details inside the buildings all the books that were all the the remaining of the bombs that were exploded all the remains of the building that were actually burned so we use a much higher resolution than we usually use in antiquity sites for this project there is no doubt that October 7 was one of the most traumatic events in the history of Israel and even today the battle for the narrative is going on in social media and the press the people of this project hope to contribute their part in this long fierce fight and to keep this moment in history alive for ages moments ago a suspected drone infiltration alarm sounded in the upper Galilee more on that story at the top of the hour don't go anywhere this is the end of this broadcast we'll be right back I'm Sarah Martinez thanks for watching today marks the 83rd day of the war as Israel intensifies its ground operation to dismantle Hamas in Gaza the military announcing this morning the death of three more IDF soldiers killed in combat in the war and the death of three more IDF soldiers killed in combat in the war and the death of three more IDF soldiers killed in combat in the war IDF soldiers killed in combat in the Gaza Strip 32-year-old Major Dvir David Fima 24-year-old Captain Neriya Zisk and 22-year-old first-class sergeant in the reserves Asaf Bin Hashtubud the current death toll of slain Israeli troops killed in just 11 weeks stands at 167 meanwhile major escalation of violence in the north of the country overnight with the military alert IDF chief of staff El Tia Levy says the army needs to be ready for a possible attack from the north the northern Israeli towns of Roshan Ikran Kiryat Shmonar along the Lebanese border were pummeled by the most intense barrage of rockets at the start of the war Wednesday evening 34 rockets fired by Hezbollah resulting in a direct hit to a home and damage to a kindergarten Israel responded to the attacks with airstrikes in southern Lebanon still in the north the southern Golan Heights was the target of a kamikaze drone attack overnight Iran backed militias in Iraq claiming responsibility for the blast that caused damage to a building near the town of Elad which they say was launched in support of Gaza let's cross over to I-24 news correspondent Pierre-Claude Schenler he's in southern Israel Pierre what's the latest in the ground operation there well I'm going to show you with Igor Bazilenko what we cannot see actually because the morning fog is adding up to the fog of war that the IDF has imposed on its operations in the Gaza Strip the focus right now on camera is the southern and central sector of the Gaza Strip where there's been aerial strikes overnight including drone strikes on a target a presumed terror target in Rafah on the border town between Egypt and the Gaza Strip on the southern tip of the Gaza Strip we've seen video by Palestinian media affiliated to Hamas of a camp of tents of displaced people that is burning what we know is that Rafah used to be a city of 200,000 inhabitants before the war and now there's about a million and a quarter of displaced people that are cramped into this city so it's very difficult for the IDF to pinpoint targets in this area further north in the eastern outskirts of Hanyunas in Kherbet al-Khuzaa and Al-Fukhari they are fighting an IDF brigade is operating in that area which is really sitting on the border with Israel on the site of maybe the worst massacre in October 7 where half of the population of this community were either massacred or kidnapped into the Gaza Strip inside Hanyunas there are three or four additional IDF brigades operating around Hanyunas and in Hanyunas itself with the 98th commando brigade which is operating at the heart of Hanyunas they are uncovering a lot of tunnel shafts uncovering tunnels where the estimate of the IDF is that the political leadership and the military leadership of Hamas are hiding underneath Hanyunas further north in the central sector of the Gaza Strip the 36th brigade of the IDF is right now operating in the eastern outskirts of the refugee camp of El Burej there have been strikes in the refugee camp of Nusserat as well as in El Mgazi and further north the 162 brigade is operating in the heart of Gaza city in Tufa Khaldaraj Thank you very much for that update from Southern Israel the IDF has recently discovered and destroyed three terror tunnel shafts belonging to Hamas near the Rantisi hospital and a nearby girls high school in the northern part of the Gaza Strip the tunnel shafts dozens of meters deep are connected by an underground network spanning several kilometers passing under the hospital and leading to the heart of Gaza city take a look In terms of our operations here this house served as a Hamas unit between the size of a cell and a squad you can see the quantity of uniforms you can see detonators and improvised explosive devices here improvised explosive device is ready to be used face masks equipment for hand coughing and kidnapping medical equipment weapons and many munition magazines mortars, study materials and here you can see equipment for tunnels whether it's shovels for digging or cables the black cable that can be seen from the security center and passes here through the house leading to the tunnel and joining me in studio is Al-Yisra Sahar he's the head of the research departments at the Israel Defense and Security Forum thank you very much for joining me this morning the IDF has been progressively destroying these Hamas tunnels used for terror activities but what's the military strategy for the tunnels in Hanunas where Hamas is believed to be holding 9 Israeli captives hostage well I think the tunnels the underground network is the major the major challenge in this war and to be honest not only the tunnels inside Gaza but also the tunnels leading outside of Gaza thinking about the day after in Gaza we have to keep not only the parameter that is let's say one kilometer deep above ground parameter where no civilian, no Gaza is allowed to get anywhere near the border with Israel and the underground network we know that these underground networks served as attack tunnels not just defensive tunnels but attack tunnels toward Israel and the smuggling tunnels underneath the Gaza Egypt border so I think the more the IDF unravels and discovers these tunnels underneath Gaza the more the let's say the size and magnitude of the challenge is becoming clear I think Hanunas is a major focal point we're surrounded by hostages in tunnels we don't know if that's true but these are the reports and we don't know where all the hostages are being held but I do think that once the Hanunas tunnel network is being taken over this is a major major turning point in the war that can really turn the needle I want to ask you we're seeing more and more soldiers die the decimal now at 167 talk to us about the complexity of this battlefield we've mentioned the tunnels we know that there's hostages unfortunately that was that tragic accident where three hostages were killed by IDF forces this is probably one of the most difficult cases of urban warfare absolutely and you know the constant messaging and statements every day it's only Israelis who know the feeling to open their phones at 637am and just pray no messages, no names of soldiers and we see the list of soldiers keeping piling up I visited Shiva the time where the family buries the fallen soldier and I saw in several of them an uplifting ambience I was shocked because you see the families really take the will of the fallen soldiers to the fallen son to tell them keep living don't sink in grief I entered one of the homes and they were simply singing there with guitars the songs that he loved listening to I think this is part of the Israeli being the Israeli ambience but also I think this is precisely the reason why Israel avoided these kind of operations these kinds of wars in Gaza in the first place and preferred to keep some sort of a balance between Israel and Hamas but now let's say the victory was imposed on Israel and it had no other choice and this is the goal to go until the end existential war I think this is the comprehension that we're living in when should we expect Israel to shift to the next phase of the war that phase that the Biden administration has been pushing for Israel to reduce its ground operation in Gaza and focus on more high-target Hamas operatives I think in the coming months or maybe in the coming weeks this looks like there are reportedly 4, 5, 6 brigades operating in the Gaza Strip this is huge I don't think anyone for sure in the IDF serving today neither reservists nor active duty has experienced any such thing in the past I think the last time we saw such a thing was the Yom Kippur War precisely 50 years to the date before October 7 maybe October 6 but still and I think the next stage will have to be purifying in the military slang clearing the area from terrorists let's say hornest nests who are still around the pockets of resistance right now I think the next challenges are the UNICEF and of course the Philadelphia route and Arafah we heard some reports from Minister Galant that it is not the intention to take over them in this stage I don't know if that's the case because from what I see the idea of continues to advance and this is exactly what should be complete Israeli control over the Gaza Strip and when you say that especially when we're talking about Gaza after the war what are the different plans on the table here and what does the Israeli government not saying it's not to be honest there are two levels here the security level and the political level or the civil level the security level I think absolutely Israel has to maintain control over the entire Gaza Strip let's be very clear about it Israel has been avoiding in October 7 in Judea and Samaria thanks to an constant daily idea of activity arresting nearly 3,000 terrorists in two months it's a record number and killing nearly 300 of suspected terrorists so I think this is what should be happening in Gaza complete frame of operation, maintaining the parameter on the fence, the underground and the border with Egypt so called Philadelphia Route, no goods enter Gaza until an Israeli eye has watched them and surveyed them and next the civil level I think Israel should allow Palestinians to maintain local directorates or local municipalities to run everyday lives to find people who have nothing to do with neither Hamas nor Fatah any of the current political factions among the Palestinians but to make sure that any international aid is conditioned upon denazification of the Gaza Strip in the education system in the media to really uproot the evil of the Nazi Hamas ideology in the education system in the public consciousness and I think this has to be conditioned before any international aid comes to reconstruct the Gaza Strip Meanwhile Egypt is reporting 92 trucks of a humanitarian aid and commercial goods have entered Gaza Last week the UN Security Council approved a resolution calling for urgent steps to immediately allow safe, unhindered and expanded humanitarian access Israel says it's ready to facilitate the expansion of humanitarian aid into Gaza but it was the UN that was holding things up Take a listen to Israeli government spokesperson Adon Levy UN agencies are currently struggling to distribute aid at the pace that Israel is inspecting it The Jerusalem crossing was closed at the request of the United Nations due to logistical constraints on the Gaza side of the crossing and we hope that the UN will now do a better job of clearing that backlog Unfortunately to date the UN aid mechanism in Gaza has been woefully unsuccessful because it goes through UNRA Aid simply isn't reaching the people who need it because Hamas hijacks it and UNRA covers up for it Still with me here in studio we just heard Israel government spokesperson Adon Levy talk about the importance of Israel inspecting that aid coming into Gaza Walk us through why that's so important Well I think we saw over the years is Hamas building up its force The question is how did so much ammunition and missiles ended up in the Gaza Strip So a lot of it is self-production that we know but we also see a vast network of tunnels underneath the Rafah crossing underneath the Philadelphia Rafah and I think Gaza to Egypt Exactly and I think Israel will have to maintain control on this area in order to prevent the smuggling in the future I think what we also see is Iran We see Iran funding the vast majority of the Hamas budget and funding I think almost 360 million dollars per year something crazy and I think this is precisely the reason why Iran is the root of the so-called evil in the Gaza Strip in Hezbollah, Houthis in Yemen and so on It's a strategy by the Iranian regime to export the revolution pouring billions of dollars around the Middle East with ammunition and so on There is no reason why the Houthis in Yemen or Hamas will have long-range missiles This is the only chance would be Iranian production So I think Hamas is committed to the let's say Iran's Shiite axis without being Shiite is committed to the Iran axis and I think at the end of the day we see the Gaza Strip by controlling this passage Shifting from the south to the north now the second time that Iran back militia's attempt to target Israel this time they succeeded in hitting a building in the Golan Heights Israeli War Commitment Member Benny Gantz is saying the situation on the border in Lebanon needs to change but we're running out of time for any sort of diplomatic solution here I think everybody says including Hamas even Chief of Staff Alevi I think understand that at the end of the day the situation in the north cannot be the same as it was but I want to make it clear because speaking to people in the political echelon and the military echelon I don't think anyone is rushing to war on the contrary I think people want to avoid war as much as possible because we understand this Israel's interest to focus on the Gaza Strip right now and the understanding of the gravity of the price the magnitude of the price with a war with Hezbollah it's not as if Israel cannot win this war decisively of course it can but the question is what's the preference right now if this crisis can be solved in other means including French and American pressure this is preferable to Israel at this point but at some point we'll have to tell the truth to ourselves to the US to France the international community as much as we could not we have become disillusioned with the strategy of containment with Hamas in the Gaza Strip we cannot contain Hezbollah in the north we cannot be the case and Hezbollah will make us forget October 7 if they launch such an attack on Israel they have massive forces over 150,000 missiles 20,000 regiment forces so I think at this point we'll have to maneuver but at some point next year next in two years we'll have to take on Hezbollah in the north we have absolutely no other choice and very briefly a Palestinian media reporting one Palestinian killed in 14 injured in clashes with IDA troops and over night Raiden Ramallah tell me a little bit about the escalating violence there in the West Bank well I'm in contact actually with soldiers fighting there and I gotta tell you they're doing a magnificent job arresting terrorists every night yesterday in Nur Shams near Tulkarm very close to the Sharon area in central Israel they arrested terrorists with ammunitions including mortar fire including M16 ammunition that we don't usually see in Judea and Samaria the rocket threat is usually exactly so first self-production that's the reason why they're not that sophisticated and two importing from Iran to be honest through the Jordanian border it is not hermetically sealed there are multiple of smuggling through the Jordanian river so the Jordanian border every year and I think the IDF and the police managed to thwart some of them with the Yagel unit of the police and the border guard and so on the notion that we can simply let the Palestinian Authority control the Ramallah Tulkarm, Jeanine Nablus without the IDF intervening has been proven false in the 1990s and the 2000s this is precisely why Defensive Shield Chomat Magen in Hebrew was launched in 2002 and I think we'll have no other choice but to keep maintaining IDF troops operating on the ground there. Thank you very much for your analysis and insight this morning. Thank you. A new project by the Israel Antiquities Authority aims to document and preserve the destruction of the Gaza envelope before a massive rebuild is done in the area. I-24 News reporter Ulrich Apia. That's more. Archaeology is often used to document and preserve items from the ancient history this time it's being used to do the same thing to something which occurred only a few months ago the Hamas onslaught of October 7. This is a massive project I think it must be the biggest and most complex project ever undertaken in Israel of this nature. I would say furthermore that it's not just complex in as much as it is very integrated from the technological point of view but added to that there is this tremendous sense of urgency everything has to be done at the best possible level at the fastest possible time with the greatest possible sensitivity. It's a joint project of the Israeli Antiquities Authority the Ministry of Heritage and the Kumar Administration a special body which was established after October 7. The main goal is to document the devastation of the Gaza envelope area. We create a base, a 3D very detailed base for the memory, for the virtual museum that will happen for many many other uses of the 3D model after those buildings here would be demolished we'll have the exact copy of those buildings in the computer and we can build our memory on top of that. Second is the evidence that we create the 3D model of those buildings which is really really accurate would be an evidence that can be used either in court or either in the public domain in the social media to confront the claim that didn't happen or that was already happening and I think the third main objective is to be a warning sign what happens when extreme religious is attacking you is confronting you in the most brutal way. The project is taking place in several main locations in the Gaza envelope. Kibbutz near Oz is one of the places which suffered the most from the Hamas attack. The group consisting of archaeologists and experts is using advanced technologies to get the best possible results. We're using a few methods of photography. First, high resolution cameras, Sony cameras for very high resolution 61 megapixel cameras. We're using drones to take photos from above and we are also using lighter scanners for the best resolution and we merge all these technologies together to get the best model that we can get. The first house the team is walking on belongs to the Akir family who managed to survive the attack after they escaped and hid in a safe room adjacent to the house. Ron Bahat, resident of near Oz says that despite the sensitivity of the issue he believes in the value of this project. Something happened here that never happened before. I think it is significant to document and to commemorate it. I think that some of those who've been here don't fully understand the importance of documenting the event for the next generations. On the one hand, there is a call to rebuild the kibbutz and bring life to what it was before. On the other hand, it is clear that it is important to show what happened here. It is clear that some of the people are not even at this stage of thinking ahead about collecting evidence. I believe that this project is top priority. This burn structure was the local kindergarten of near Oz. We can still see traces of the life that was here before the fire such as happy new year cards made only two weeks before the attack. The 3D model tries to give one the opportunity to tour this site which is inaccessible to most people. There were a lot of people here because it was Saturday morning so the kindergarten was left as it is and you can see the ash layer is set on the tables and all the stuff. Our next stop is the house of Oded and Jochéved Lifshitz close to the kibbutz fence. The elderly couple was abducted to Gaza and only Jochéved has so far returned. Photographer Maya Hadash talks about her personal interest in this project which is different from most of her work. It's a very technical work. I always need to understand the 360 perspective of the building and what is the drone getting from above and what I need to complete. How can I complete the drone from different angles also from ground level and also inside. This also question of the line between observation and voyeurism. In recent weeks we have seen hundreds of people come to view the broken houses of the Gaza border something that may be disturbing for some and significant and meaningful for others. You got to see it. It's like everything bad that happens to the Jewish people. You need to record it. Camps in World War II where the pogroms happen you need to preserve some of it. The next stage is to collect the data and create a 3D model and maps. This is done at the IAA headquarters in Jerusalem. The process goes like this. We have experts who collect data in the field. All the data is downloaded to the system and here is where we analyze and start modeling. We have a huge amount to date of pictures of the houses. Here we can check which structure was documented. For example here in this map I can see each house and check if it was documented and at which level of documentation it is. So it's like a relay race. There are people who collect data people who receive the data those who process it and those who builds the model. This is the last stage. Using this application helps us to see the process and to verify that nothing gets lost on the way. It is still unclear what the final usage of this project will be on which platform it will be shown and whether it will be available to the wider public. Professor Moshe Kane from the Hadassah Academic College also talks about the ethical and social questions such as the possibility that the project is akin to a video game. People who wish to deny will deny. We are living in an age of artificial intelligence of fake reality, fake news people who want to say that it's not real they will say it. We're all familiar with the various 3D games which are created at the highest level of realism but the same technologies can be used for much more serious and much more important digital documentation. This project may also improve the current process of modeling and documenting historic sites says project manager David Zell. The building that we have that we are attacked have a lot of many, many small details so we need to use even higher resolution and better technologies than we use normally in Antiquity site to be able to actually create 3D models of all small details inside the buildings all the books that were the remaining of the bombs that were exploded all the remains of the building that were actually burned so we use a much higher resolution than we usually use in Antiquity site for this project. There is no doubt that October 7 was one of the most traumatic events in the history of Israel and even today the battle for the narrative is going on in social media and the press. The people of this project hope to contribute their part in this long fierce fight and to keep this moment in history alive for ages. Moments ago a suspected drone infiltration alarm sounded in the upper Galilee more on that story at the top of the hour don't go anywhere this is the end of this broadcast I'm Sara Martinez thanks for watching Israel is in a state of war families completely done down in their beds we have no idea where she is our soldiers are fighting on the front line but the general perception is something that certainly needs to be fought as well. Excusive interviews and reports from the war zone the reaction of the Spanish-speaking countries News 24 the only Spanish media that keeps you informed and connected with the Latin community in Israel. News 24 only on I24 News A suspected drone infiltration alarm sounded in the upper Galilee this comes after a major escalation of violence in the north of the country overnight with the military on a high alert. IDF chief of staff Erci Alevi says the army needs to be ready for a possible attack from the north. Wednesday evening the northern Israeli towns of Roshan Ikran Kiryat Shmona along the Lebanese border were pummeled by the most intense barrage of rockets since the start of the war. They were fired by Hezbollah resulting in a direct hit to a home and damage to a kindergarten. Israel responded to the attacks with airstrikes in southern Lebanon. Still in the north the southern Golan Heights was the target of a kamikaze drone attack overnight. Iran backed militias in Iraq claiming responsibility for the blast that caused damage to a building near the town of Elad which they say was launched in support of Gaza. A death of three more soldiers killed in combat in the Gaza Strip bringing the death toll. A slain Israeli troops killed in just 11 weeks to 167. Joining me now in studio is Yaakov Lapin. He's a military and strategic affairs analyst at the Jewish news syndicate and the Miriam Institute. Thank you very much for joining me this morning. The IDF chief commander Jose Salami claims that the October 7th attack was a purely Palestinian move and no Palestinian, non-Palestinian side foreign entities were involved and he added that contrary to what the IRJC spokesperson reported yesterday that avenging Qassem Soleimani's killing had nothing to do with October 7th and that Iran will take its revenge in the right time. My question for you is Iran trying to protect itself of any possible attacks on its proxies in the region and also any possible international sanctions here. So first of all I think it's trying to walk back a failed propaganda claim we saw just yesterday the Iranians were boasting that this was some sort of revenge for the killing of Soleimani back in 2020 and I think yesterday we were sitting here discussing that and I was expressing a lot of skepticism that that was actually linked to the assassination and then Hamas itself came out and said no this was not and so I think even just on the propaganda battlefield the Iranians realized that they went too far with that claim and walked it back. What it does do however is it attracts attention to a bigger question which I don't think we necessarily have the answer to right now which is what was Iran's level of involvement in coordinating or lack of involvement in coordinating October 7th. We know that the Iranians of course helped provide Hamas with most of its terrorist military capabilities that's beyond any question and doctrines and they knew full well what Hamas wanted to do eventually but the question is did Hamas, did Hezbollah know beforehand or not and well to that point French media Lofigal reporting this morning that Hamas officials only updated or reportedly only updated their Hezbollah and Iranian counterparts about half an hour before the attack was launched. Right and so we have rules of thought you know we can call it the majority and the minority opinion and the majority opinion is really saying look Hamas kept its cards very close to its chest it did not update anybody for fear of letting words slip and giving Israel the heads up and it kind of just expected Yahya Senwar, the leader of Hamas expected Hezbollah and Iranians to automatically activate their capabilities against Israel when they saw what Hamas would do and that expectation failed that's not what happened that's the dominant view and there is a minority view which says actually there is some kind of coordination and there may be some sort of phased plan and this argument is going to have to play out I don't think we're in a position to settle it decisively it's a very important argument we don't necessarily have all the information but as of now what we do know is that these fronts were not activated at the same time or even immediately one after the other and that certainly does seem to have disappointed Yahya Senwar. And speaking of Senwar you mentioned earlier for Iran to activate its attacks in the region but also he did achieve though in orchestrating this major attack and keeping it under wraps for so long. Yes of course he apted him in the entire Hamas military wing and headed by Mohammad Def were able using low technology and face-to-face communications essentially to keep this mass murder plan which has been in the works for years under wraps so that you know something that they were able to completely deceive the Israeli intelligence community but what I think Yahya Senwar did not foresee was he didn't understand the level of Israeli determination to fight despite the pain that the Israeli people are feeling over the hostage situation he expected the hostage situation to paralyze Israeli society and decision-making and it has not done that he expected the international pressure that Israel is under to bring Israel into some sort of ceasefire that has not happened so central assumptions that Yahya Senwar made have collapsed one thing I would say that he assumed that did occur was that Hamas's ability to fall back on its enormous tunnel network and to keep fighting from there that assumption has proven itself for Hamas's perspective they are able to be in this war in the long run primarily because of their underground infrastructure and to that point I want to cross over to I-24 News Correspondent Pia Kloschenler he's in southern Israel Pia what's the latest in the ground operation well the silence that we've enjoyed here is being punctuated by artillery shelling of presumed terror targets in the area behind me and further south toward the center of the Gaza Strip where the three main refugee camps are located El Borej, Al Mugazi and Nusserat there there's been heavy fighting on the eastern outskirts of El Borej between the 36 brigade and three Hamas battalions that are operating in these three refugee camps and the goal is obviously to annihilate those terrorists further south there's four or five brigades it's not clear of the IDF operating in Hanyunes inside the city with the commando units as well as on the outskirts of Hanyunes there is a punctual operation that has been going on for the past couple of days in Kherbet El Chouda'a and Al Fuhairi which are facing Kibbutz Nahal Oz which was the site of maybe the worst massacre during the October 7th half of the population were either killed or kidnapped and inside the Gaza Strip and the IDF is trying to neutralize those two communities because the Al Nourba elite units of Hamas came from those two communities further south there's been targeted bombing of Rafa now you just heard a series of artillery fire that is targeting probably either the sector behind me or the central sector of the refugee camps in this area there's heavy fighting also on the access roads in order to section to cut the Gaza Strip into different areas and therefore control the passage of troops of displaced people and to prevent the passage of terrorists that would come in support to one another there's heavy fighting on this Salahadin access road behind me the two little towns of Juchoradik and Al-Muraka are strategic in that sense because they control the Salahadin access road to Khan Yunus Israel the IDF is fighting on those access roads in order to assert the control of the Gaza Strip and cut it off into three different sections the south, the center and the northern part of the Gaza Strip And Pia you mentioned the Salahadin access road there in Gaza which up until now was used by civilians to be able to move south towards away from the fighting tell me a little bit about the efforts that the IDF is taking to minimize civilian casualties there Well they're trying to minimize casualties but we've heard for instance that in the night of Sunday to Monday there was a target strike by warplanes of the IDF on Al-Murazi refugee camp which is in this direction and they didn't use precise ammunition there was collateral killing of non-involved Palestinians and the IDF is right now investigating the incident they've recognized that they didn't use precise ammunition and they're trying to refine the regulations of the airstrikes in order to use only precise ammunition when a target, a presumed target is very close to non-involved Palestinian population in that strike in the night of Sunday to Monday tens of people were killed and the IDF is expressing its sorrow now it's true that they're making a major effort and this is why the ground offensive is going so slow to preserve the lives of the soldiers obviously to preserve the lives of the hostages but also not to inflict unnecessary casualties on the non-involved Palestinian population the Salah had in access that you mentioned which cuts the Gaza Strip from north to south on the eastern side of the Gaza Strip was used as a humanitarian corridor in the northern part of the Gaza Strip but in the south of Gaza City behind me and in the central part and southern part of the Gaza Strip that corridor cannot be used by the population because it is still the site of fighting and therefore every day the Ministry of Defense the Israeli Ministry of Defense and its unit that deals with the Palestinian population is instructing the population to move west of Hanyunness for instance because the Salah had in access is unreachable for them to move west and then move north to the city of Direl Baloch Hanyunness and Gaza City in the center of the Gaza Strip and then reach another safe corridor which is the Aruna Rashid access which is under control of the IDF and that goes along the Gaza Strip along the Mediterranean coast and there on the Aruna Rashid coast coastal road then you can reach the safe humanitarian zone of Al-Muassi between Rafah and Hanyunness Meanwhile Egypt is reporting 92 trucks of humanitarian aid commercial goods entered Gaza on Wednesday thank you very much for that update the IDF has discovered and destroyed three terror tunnel shafts belonging to Hamas near the Rantisi hospital and a nearby girls high school in the northern part of the Gaza Strip the tunnel shafts dozens of meters deep are connected by an underground network spanning several kilometers to enter the hospital and leading to the heart of Gaza City take a listen in terms of our operations here this house served as a Hamas unit between the size of a cell and a squad you can see the quantity of uniforms you can see detonators and improvised explosive devices here improvised explosive devices ready to be used face masks, equipment for handcuffing and kidnapping weapons and many munition magazines mortars, study materials and here you can see equipment for tunnels whether it's shovels for digging or cables the black cable that can be seen comes from the community center and passes here through the house leading to the tunnel still with me here in studio Yakov Lapin military and strategic affairs analyst at the Jewish news syndicate and the Miriam Institute I want to get your assessment on the situation in Gaza and when should we expect Israel to shift to this next phase of the war like the Biden administration has pressuring Israel to do so to move away from its reduce at least its ground operation and focus more on high target Hamas officials so I think what we're seeing for example in the Rantisi hospital again when we use the words Rantisi hospital what we're saying in military terms is there's a particular network of tunnels that focused and was built around the hospital hospital was sort of the tip of the iceberg where terrorists could come up surface and they go down they can reappear anywhere in the area that strategic tunnel network has been identified, located, destroyed and this is what the IDF has been doing across northern Gaza it's now starting to do this in central and southern Gaza with a real emphasis on southern Gaza for at least four weeks to identify and start destroying the major strategic tunnels and the reason that that takes time is because in southern Gaza the underground infrastructure is being defended by Hamas terrorists they're coming out of the tunnels they're doing hit and run and then they're disappearing so first the IDF has to neutralize that threat then it can start identifying sending in its engineering units its combat engineering led by the Yahlom which is an incredible unit and to start a safety process so all of this is going to take time I would say that the high intensity phase of this war has probably at least around a month left in it could be more and then just to adjust expectations once the government and the war cabinet decide to go to the next stage that doesn't mean the end of the war the war will continue for many many more months it will simply mean that there will be a lot less ground forces they won't be needed to secure and destroy all of the above ground and the underground threats that are coming up and the IDF will be able to work in a much more precise focused manner to continue to destroy the tunnels and go after the Hamas senior leadership those will be its main objectives and you mentioned the IDF progressively destroying those Hamas tunnels in the northern part of the strip the central but in the south I want to ask you what's the military strategy there to destroy those tunnels because we know that those 129 hostages are most likely being held down below the ground in those tunnels along with those Hamas operatives right so because the IDF uses a very advanced digital combat network which enables all of the forces operating in the sector to know where they should be hitting and where they shouldn't be the this my presumption the suspected location of hostages underground will be appearing on those digital networks and the field commanders will know do not operate here do not strike do not use bombs for the air force or the artillery and they will keep away from those areas and at the same time they will use that ability to direct in a very very precise manner their firepower against Hamas targets in other places of southern Gaza they're dividing southern Gaza into many many cells it's a polygon it's like a grid network and that is how they're going to proceed Israel is facing pressure from all sides we're facing international pressure for a ceasefire in Gaza we're facing pressure from the Biden administration to wrap up at least this phase of the war and move on like we mentioned to a more tactical targeted killings but Israel is also facing internal pressure from those families of hostages that are still held hostage I want to ask you what is the strategy here and the expectations that are realistic here right and I think that's you know probably a question right now for the Israeli people and also for the region Israel's enemies Hamas because Bala Iran are always involved in long-term thinking in terms of their strategy they're talking about wearing Israel down and betting on the fact that Israel will get impatient and that it will operate according to the sort of Western instant expectation instant coffee expectation if we can call it that and what the military chiefs here are saying we need to get rid of those expectations this is going to be a very long military campaign even if it changes stages and downshifts the expectations is that it's going to take many months to reach the main objectives of this war in Gaza and that's without even talking about what's going to happen in the north which we still don't know so the expectation is to use Israel's military resources in a way that they can keep fighting this war for many months. How many months though include those hostages those 120 hostages will they remain their underground for many more months to go so look I think that you know that very much depends on the ability of Israel to put direct pressure on Hamas's leadership and the ability of the IDF to do that rests primarily on intelligence now yesterday we had a very interesting comment by the IDF spokesperson Daniel Higari he said that they have been recovering from tunnels and hideouts underground in northern Gaza camera and computer drives and that military intelligence and the Shinkbet are extracting a very valuable intelligence from those and that they will use that intelligence to go after what he said higher achievements which I believe is a reference to the Hamas leadership the more that leadership faces pressure the more open it will be to reaching some sort of hostage a deal and I think that's that's you know the direction that the IDF is going in. I want to quickly expand on the situation in the north escalation there is is rapidly increasing Israeli war cabinet member Ben Gans is saying the situation demands change and the time is running out for any sort of diplomatic solution there. Right and also yesterday the IDF chief of staff said that he approved plans he didn't say what those plans are but in order for him to approve plans that means that he has to give permission to local military commanders in northern command and the territorial brigades and divisions that are operating there to do things that they so far have not done I interpret that as meaning that he has given approval to more offensive plans and not just sort of the targeted active defense plans it seems to me that we're heading towards an escalation with Hezbollah because diplomatic efforts with all due respect are not going to get Hezbollah off the border and push it away it's not going to agree to that southern Lebanon is its scope of that escalation and the timing those are unknowns but I think the collision course is quite clear and and you know all the signs are pointing in that direction. Israeli photographers traveling across the country to document the struggle the families and wives of the IDF reservists are struggling in these hard times for her photo project called Home Front or Hannah Brithkin takes us behind the scenes on one of these photo shoots take a look. A nation that comes together everyone is playing their part during wartime in Israel Sharoni Galliano usually captures life's most special and happy milestones on October 7th she switched on a dime with the outbreak of war she now highlights Israeli women whose partners have reported for Milouim the Hebrew term for reserve duty for those with loved ones on the this is the other home front I love that linear head on him think the thing that I saw the most around me which I didn't see being recognized or spoken about at all was the struggle of women whose husbands are at war and what it meant for them when we were expected in a way to resume life to whatever capacity we can with children at home and the men away it leaves untied homes and uncoordinated outfits it's the most candid it can be what has the experience been so far when you photograph these women when you go to visit them I hear a whole other side of it that I think we have to as a community, as a country deal with in the future is these husbands aren't coming back the same she doesn't even get the opportunity or the chance to just kind of just break down and let out what she's feeling because she has to be strong for her kids for her husband through this project I was able to really get a better picture listen to their stories and share them so that other people can know what they're going through and kind of take them out of themselves and look around and say who do I know that I can support who needs an ear to listen a shoulder to cry on or just someone to see what they're experiencing the stories Sharoni encounters are mainly among new immigrants and they range from balancing single motherhood to experiencing miscarriages to the prospect of giving birth alone while positive occasions and events best suit the spotlight her lens finds strength in authenticity I think in a larger sense sometimes we go through really terrible things and they're horrible and we say like I don't want to remember this I don't want to remember this but I think that there is significance and value and importance to during those times to be in photos and to document them even if you don't look at them now because we're going to get through this however horrible it is we're going to get through this and there's going to be a day after and that day after I want women that I photograph women in general to look back and say like look what I survived look how resilient I was Rebecca is just one of more than a dozen women Sharoni has documented so far I work in sales enablement and HPN to go I'm also a mom a wife and a friend and your husband's a meal and my husband's a meal on the bright side I didn't realize what an incredible husband I had I think until he was gone Rebecca is doing her best to hold down the fort while there are sometimes immense challenges she finds empowerment in her family's wartime role and also in sharing her story I think it encouraged me to be one of the main characters and like the story of who's defending Israel right now it sort of gave me the permission that I needed to know that being my kids mom right now and working and getting everyone in and out of Omicolat is my part of what we're doing right now to protect Israel and it'll be an important memory I think afterwards as a result of Sharoni's experience with her home front project she along with her friend Zahava also started an initiative to help families of reservists in their own community what started with five families grew to 35 pretty quickly Shemiluim wife has a buddy that checks in on them that sees what they need and then we provide them two meals a week a package for Shabbat cleaning help babysitting and basically whatever they tell us they need we try our best to support them in that way and it's been amazing it's not just us we have a pool of volunteers that help make this happen whether it's delivering meals cooking meals offering babysitting help it gave an opportunity also to a lot of people that wanted to help but had no idea how and felt like well what can I contribute I'm not fighting in the army my husband is home with worlds turned upside down these women are trying hard to have some sort of routine a new normal as the war drags on Khanna Rivkin for i24 news these resilient and brave women are the backbone of this war supporting their families having to run their husbands businesses while their husbands are at war with no financial compensation from the government so far that marks the end of this broadcast but don't go anywhere i24 news will be back at the top of the hour with more rolling coverage of the Israel Hamas war if you missed anything from this broadcast you can always catch up on our website i24news.tv or on social media, facebook, twitter and instagram I'm Sarah Martinez thanks for watching in a state of war families completely in their beds we have no idea where is she as our soldiers are fighting on the front lines but the general perception is something that certainly needs to be fought as well you're watching i24 news I'm Sarah Martinez live from Tel Aviv today marks the 83rd day of the war as Israel intensifies its ground operation to dismantle Hamas in Gaza a short while ago suspected drone infiltration alarm sounded in the upper galley this comes after a major escalation of violence in the north of the country overnight with the military on a high alert IDF chief of staff El Cialevis says the army needs to be ready for a possible attack from the north Wednesday evening the northern Israeli towns of Roshani Khan, Kiryat Shmona along the Lebanese border were pummeled by the most intense mirage of rockets since the start of the war 34 rockets were fired by Hezbollah resulting in a direct hit to a home and damage to a kindergarten that responded to the attacks with airstrikes in southern Lebanon still in the north the southern Golan Heights was the target of a kamikaze drone attack overnight Iran backed militias in Iraq claiming responsibility for the blast that caused damage to a building near the town of Elad which they say was launched in support of Gaza meanwhile the IDF announcing this morning the death of three more soldiers killed in combat in the Gaza Strip between Israeli troops killed in just 11 weeks to 167 and joining me now in studio is Yaakov Lapin he's a military and strategic affairs analyst at the Jewish news syndicate and the Miriam Institute thank you very much for joining me this morning the RGC chief commander Hossein Salami claims that the October 7th attack was a purely totally Palestinian move and no Palestinian, non-Palestinian side foreign entities were killed and he added that contrary to what the RGC spokesperson reported yesterday that avenging Qasem Soleimani's killing had nothing to do with October 7th and that Iran will take its revenge in the right time my question for you is Iran trying to protect itself of any possible attacks on its proxies in the region and also any possible international sanctions here we saw a failed propaganda claim we saw just yesterday the Iranians were boasting that this was some sort of revenge for the killing of Soleimani back in 2020 and I think yesterday we were sitting here discussing that and I was expressing a lot of skepticism that that was actually linked to the assassination and then Hamas itself came out and said no this was not and so I think even just on the propaganda battlefield the Iranians realized that they went too far with it back what it does do however is it attracts attention to a bigger question which I don't think we necessarily have the answer to right now which is what was Iran's level of involvement in coordinating or lack of involvement in coordinating October 7th we know that the Iranians of course helped provide Hamas with most of its terrorist military capabilities that's beyond any question and doctrines and they knew full well what Hamas wanted to do eventually but the question is did Hamas, did Hezbollah know beforehand or not and well to that point French media don't figure out reporting this morning that Hamas officials only updated or reportedly only updated their Hezbollah and Iranian counterparts about half an hour before the attack was right and so we have two schools of thought you know we can call it the majority and the minority opinion and the majority opinion is really saying look Hamas kept its cards very close to its chest it did not update anybody for fear of letting words slip and giving Israel the heads up and it kind of just expected Yehiss and Muar the leader of Hamas expected Hezbollah and Iranians to automatically activate their capabilities against Israel when they saw what Hamas would do and that expectation failed that's not what happened that's the dominant view and there is a minority view which says actually there is some kind of coordination and there may be some sort of phased plan and this argument is going to have to play out I don't think we're in a position to settle it decisively it's a very important argument we don't necessarily have all information but as of now what we do know is that these fronts were not activated at the same time or even immediately one after the other and that certainly does seem to have disappointed Yehiss and Muar and speaking of Sunwar you mentioned his failure for Iran to activate its attacks in the region but also he did achieve though in orchestrating this major attack and keeping it under wraps for so long Yes of course he after him and the entire Hamas military wing and headed by Muhammad Def were able using low technology and face to face communications essentially to keep this mass murder plan which has been in the works for years for at least two to three years under wraps so that you know something that you know they can't they were able to completely deceive the Israeli intelligence community but what I think Yihiss and Muar did not foresee was a he didn't understand the level of Israeli determination to fight despite the pain that the Israeli people are feeling over the hostage situation he expected the hostage situation to paralyze Israeli society and decision making and it has not done that he expected the international pressure that Israel is under to bring Israel into some sort of ceasefire so central assumptions that Yihiss and Muar made have collapsed one thing I would say that he assumed that did occur was that Hamas' ability to fall back on its enormous tunnel network and to keep fighting from there that assumption has proven itself for Hamas' perspective they are able to be in this war in the long run primarily because of their underground infrastructure and to that point I want to cross over to I-24 news correspondent Pia Kloschender from the southern Israel Pia what's the latest in the ground operation well the silence that we've enjoyed here is being punctuated by artillery shelling of presumed terror targets in the area behind me and further south toward the center of the Gaza Strip where the three main refugee camps are located El Borej, Al Mughazi and Nusserat there is this been heavy fighting on the eastern outskirts of El Borej between the 36th brigade and three Hamas' battalions that are operating in these three refugee camps and the goal is obviously to annihilate those terrorists further south there's four or five brigades it's not clear of the IDF operating in Hanyunas inside the city with the commando units as well as on the outskirts of Hanyunas there is a punctual operation that has been going on for the past couple of days in Kherbet El Chouda'a and Al Fuhairi which are facing Kibbutz Lachal Oz which was the site of maybe the worst massacre during the October 7 events half of the population were either killed or kidnapped and inside the Gaza Strip and the IDF is trying to neutralize those two communities because the Al Nourba elite units of Hamas came from those two communities further south there's been targeted bombing of Rafas now you just heard a series of salvo of artillery fire that is targeting probably either the sector behind me or the central sector of the refugee camps in this in this area there's heavy fighting also on the access roads in order to section to cut the Gaza Strip into different areas and therefore control the passage of troops the passage of displaced people and to prevent the passage of terrorists coming support to one another there's heavy fighting on the Salahadin access road behind me the two village the two little towns of Juchoradik and Al-Muraka are strategic in that sense because they control the Salahadin access road to Khan Yunus and therefore Israel the IDF is fighting on those access roads in order to cut the control of the Gaza Strip and cut it off into three different sections the south the center and the northern part of the Gaza Strip and Pia you mentioned the Salahadin access road there in Gaza which up until now was used by civilians to be able to move south towards away from the fighting tell me a little bit about the efforts that the IDF is taking to minimize civilian casualties there well they're trying to minimize casualties and I've heard for instance that in the night of Sunday to Monday there was a target strike by warplanes of the IDF on El-Murazi refugee camp which is in this direction and they didn't use precise ammunition and as a result there was collateral killing of non-involved Palestinians is right now investigating the incident they've recognized that they didn't use precise ammunition and they're trying to refine the regulations of the airstrikes in order to use only precise ammunition when a target a presumed terror target is very close to non-involved Palestinian population in that strike in the night of Sunday to Monday tens of people were killed and the IDF is expressing its sorrow now it's true that they're making a major effort and this is why the ground offensive is going so slow to preserve the lives of the soldiers obviously to preserve the lives of the hostages but also not to inflict unnecessary casualties on the non-involved Palestinian population the Salahadin access that you mentioned cuts the Gaza Strip from north to south on the eastern side of the Gaza Strip was used as a humanitarian corridor in the northern part of the Gaza Strip but in the south of Gaza City behind me and in the central part and southern part of the Gaza Strip that corridor cannot be used by the population because it is still the site of fighting and therefore every day the Ministry of Defense the Israeli Ministry of Defense and its unit that deals with the Palestinian population is instructing the population to move west of Hanyunes for instance because the Salahadin access is unreachable for them to move west and then move north to the city of Direl Baloch w