Good morning and welcome to I-24 News' ongoing coverage of Israel at War. I'm Ariel Levin-Waldman. Today, the United Nations Security Council will vote on a Gaza ceasefire resolution. The Arab-sponsored resolution calls for a halt to hostilities in Gaza, but was delayed because the United States said it would not pass with its earlier warning, which did not condemn Hamas for its crimes against humanity on October 7th. The United States holds veto power on the Security Council, and diplomats said negotiations were taking place to get the United States, Israel's closest ally, to either abstain or vote yes on the resolution. Indications are that the wording could shift to a temporary pause rather than a permanent ceasefire, this in accordance with stated U.S. policy, which also calls for the destruction of Hamas. The IDF announced that two more soldiers were killed in combat in Gaza. Master Sergeant Daniel Yakov Ben-Harosh and Captain Rotam Yosef raising the total number of slain troops since the ground operation in Gaza began to 131. Hamas released a new propaganda video in which elderly hostages are forced to read from a script, demanding Israel give in to any Hamas demands for their freedom. We will not show this clear psychological warfare on our channel. The video that Hamas released is a criminal terror video. It testifies to Hamas' cruelty towards innocent elderly civilians who are in need of medical care. The world must act in order to deliver medical aid and check on the state of the hostages. We are morally obliged to do every and all efforts in order to bring the hostages back home. Our heart is with all the hostages and their families all the time, Haim, Yolam and Amiram. I hope you hear me tonight. Know that we are doing everything, everything in order to bring you back safely. Some of your family members are already home. We will not rest until you too are returned. And we're going to open with our eye on the south where our correspondent Pierre Kloschenler is standing by just outside the city of Sterot on the border with Gaza. Walk us through the latest developments we've seen on that front. Well we're actually in near Kibbutz Bayeri which is facing south of Gaza City and Orange Meisler, our cameraman, can show you the strikes that are still pounding the area of the southern Gaza city, the Almugraka town, as well as the Salahadin axis, which in that particular sector leads to Hanyunas, which is now the shifting focal point of the ground operation that started here in this particular sector from December 2nd. There are still pockets of resistance in the Jebaliah refugee camp we hear from Palestinian media affiliated to Hamas. That west of the Jebaliah refugee camp there are fierce fighting. Sejaia is still being fought for, which is on the southeastern outskirts of Gaza City and they announced yesterday, the IDF announced yesterday, that the division, that the brigade that was in charge of the Betchanun area in the northern sector of the Gaza Strip, has been completely, fully been under operational control of the Israeli army after most of the terror infrastructure was destroyed and the area now has been ended over to the Gaza division. The focus now is on Hanyunas really, which is further to the left of your monitor, about 20 kilometers away from where we are now. There is an artillery outgoing as I'm talking and there, there are fierce fighting east and north of Hanyunas, according to Palestinian media. We hear also bombing in Rafar, Palestinian media affiliated to Hamas are saying that three houses were struck by the IDF Air Force and there are 25 casualties, fatalities in that bombing according to Palestinian media. Well, thank you very much for that update from the front, Pierre. We will be back with you over the course of the day as that situation develops. For more, though, we are joined for some analysis by Colonel Mary Eisen, the director of the Institutional Institute for Counterterrorism at Reichman University. Mary, thank you so much for joining us. Absolutely happy to be here. I want to open with the Hamas propaganda video featuring those three elderly hostages. It's pretty obvious what their goals in this to manipulate the Israeli public into acceding to the demands for a ceasefire on almost any terms. The question is, is it effective at getting that response? So, first of all, there's no question, and I think we'll both agree that it impacts us. In this case, I happen to know one of those people and to see what he looks like. Two and a half months in captivity and none of them are young is certainly going to impact us. The whole issue of a terror organization in taking hostages is to create the kind of visuals that they show when they show the hostages. It's to impact us. It's to scare us. It's to make us do things that we wouldn't do otherwise. In this case, because it was a mass hostage taking, we showed three of them that there are over 130 and don't have the exact number in that sense that are in the Gaza Strip. Women still have the children, the baby that we know nothing of, and what they're doing is they're trying to twist the aspect of terror. So at the end, yes, they are going to try to use this, and in that sense, that's why terror takes hostages. They want to use it. And now the question is not, do we stand firm? At the end, we need to get the hostages back. Then it becomes the art of negotiation and negotiating with the terror organization's means. Yes, standing a bit strong and firm opposite the photographs, but still absolutely understanding that we are going to have to pay a heavy price to be able to get back our citizens, to get back our people, to get back our grandfathers and our grand, you know, the babies, we are going to have to pay a price. So it's part of what's going on. Mary, in light of all the bad news you've had regarding hostages over the last week or so, is there still a prevailing hope among the military establishment and Israel's leaders that a military operation to retrieve the hostages is still possible? The military operation, in that sense, to retrieve the individuals we've said from the beginning, it's not that I'm part of the IDF, but what both these are, the Defense Forces, the Defense Establishment, have always said, is that the hostages are spread all over the place. They showed three. And as we've heard in the small amount of information that's been released, that the hostages were held separately all over the place. They were kidnapped from their homes in the north. They were up north. From the south, they were down south. They're in a variety of different places. So to do an operation would never be to bring all 130. It would be able to bring two here, three there with the kind of event that happened last week. Three hostages were killed by Israeli troops and such an erroneous, and I'll say in that sense, you know, a military bad decision, but it's a military decision in the time of war. This isn't going to impede or trying to do so, but it would never be that kind of a picture of, look, we've brought them all back at once. So I think that there will be the capability to do small places, hopefully, but that much more of it is about negotiating, about releasing from Israel the price that we would have to pay, which would be Palestinian prisoners. But at this stage, the military operation is very much impacting the Hamas. They are not in a position to be able to, like, just negotiate whatever they want. That military pressure definitely changes their capabilities. Mayor, we're going to discuss so much more in a brief moment, so stay with us. But first, I want to turn our eye to the North Live, where our correspondent, Zach Anders, is standing by on the border with Lebanon. Zach, walk us through the latest developments and escalations we've seen on that front. Good morning. Yesterday was another day of strikes from southern Lebanon, as many as seven different strikes, not all being claimed by Hezbollah, as these strikes appeared to late in the evening cause damage in Kiret Shemona with, apparently, what appears to be rockets. We still don't have confirmation whether this was bits of an intercepted rocket or the rocket itself hitting a kindergarten and another building starting a fire. The EMTs, the paramedics, and Magandavidam, the National Ambulance Service, saying that there were no injuries in both strikes. This, of course, happened late at night, so no one was in the kindergarten, fortunately. But another momentous day in some of these communities, many of them evacuated, but still these strikes and attacks continue. And Zach, where we're hearing reports, as you just mentioned, not all of which are Hezbollah-likely Hamas, that it's not just from Lebanon. New reports in Israeli media show Hamas possibly opening up a new front in Syria with a small squad they're building there. What have we seen of enemy activity in other surrounding countries? Well, we've actually seen quite a bit of activity from Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, and that's why the IDF says it was targeting earlier in the week, or last week, rather, positions inside southern Syria belonging to a Hezbollah senior official and also positions of the Syrian army. The Syrian army has been involving itself, apparently, in a couple of fronts with state television in Jordan last night, late last night, saying they foiled a plot to infiltrate their border with militants that had equipment, anti-tank mines, and that Jordanian security forces were there at the border to stop this. It's unclear who exactly these militants align themselves with or which faction they appear from, but it does seem, with the political situation being as it is in Lebanon and in Syria, that some of these groups have been operating with impunity and moving around these countries without being hassled or apprehended by the state's security forces themselves. So, these are events that likely we won't get much clarity for given the media landscape and the security situation in both countries for some time, but it is another serious concern here for the amount of activity, militant activity that's taking place in both countries, and you can see that more and more of these events happening with shuttling weapons around and firing from positions in the south of both countries. Well, thank you very much, Zach, for that report from the northern border. We'll be back with you over the course of the day as the situation there develops. We now return to Mary Eisen, though. Mary, that last question I asked for Zach reports in local media showing that Hamas has plans to open another front from Syria as well, having moved dozens of their operatives into position and moving equipment across Syria. A serious threat's more of the same, and from what I understand, the Syrian government doesn't exactly like Hamas operating out of their territory. Well, let's take us back, you know, almost a decade to what is the country called Syria that borders us to the northeast. Inside Syria, there was a horrific war for over a decade. The winner, if you can call it in that sense, of that war was the dictator who managed to survive. That's Bashar Assad. Syria under Bashar Assad, and continues to be that way to this day, is not what you would call a sovereign country that knows what's going on inside. Not only that, but aside from Hamas, Hezbollah for many, many years has been the one Hezbollah, the terror organization, the one in Lebanon that has been building Syrian's military. And so when we talk about Syrian's military that Zach mentioned before, that inside Jordan, they said that Syrian military forces were going to attack inside Jordan. Here I need to bring in both Hezbollah and Hamas. Hamas's headquarters used to be in Syria. When the war started in Syria in 2011, the heads of Hamas that we all know nowadays are mainly in Qatar and a bit in Turkey. They moved from Syria out of Syria because of the war. But there's always been a Palestinian Palestinian terror organization presence inside Syria. The heads of Palestinian Islam in Jihad were always hosted in Damascus. They haven't come back, but they still have that presence. There are Palestinian refugee camps from 1948 and from 67 inside Syrian territory. And because of that, Hamas does have a place that they could go to. They have places that they could both train and use. I don't see this as the main threat. The main threat from Hamas is both from the enormous amount of what they built in the Gaza Strip. The threat is also more, from my point of view, in Judea and Samaria, the West Bank, and slightly from Lebanon than what we see in Syria. In Syria, it's that combination of Hezbollah helping the military, of Hezbollah also helping the other Shiite groups that are in both the southern Golan Heights and throughout Syria. Thank you very much, Mary. Stay with us. We're going to be coming back to you, but first we have to discuss some of those other Shiite groups backed by Iran, that of course being the Houthis, the nations of the world, now banding together to stop the Iran-backed Houthis from ending international shipping through the Bab al-Mandeb Straits. The United States announced that it would lead a 10-nation task force to end Houthi missile and drone attacks. At risk is a full 12% of global sea trade. That's a threat to cripple the entire global economy. The announcement comes after the oil titan BP, which is responsible for 20% of global oil trade, announced the suspension of all oil trade through the Red Sea alongside multiple shipping giants that includes Maresk. And it's notable for Israel because about 30% of Israel's imports pass through the Red Sea. So in the Red Sea, we're leading a multinational maritime task force to uphold the bedrock principle of freedom of navigation. Iran's support for Houthi attacks on commercial vessels must stop. These attacks are reckless, dangerous, and they violate international law. And so we're taking action to build an international coalition to address this threat. And I would remind you that this is not just a US issue. This is an international problem, and it deserves an international response. And we're joined now by Dean Shmuel Alms, geopolitical energy analyst at Globes. Thank you very much, Dean, for joining us on this program. Walk us through just how much of the world's economy is at stake here due to the threats posed by the Houthis. If we look on the latest news, we speak about five out of seven biggest shipping companies worldwide that decided to stop using the Red Sea. They share out of all the world market, not just the European or the regional market. We speak about 60%. So it's huge. It's massive. And for my own opinion, this is the main reason why we see the latest news with this particular task force. Now, what I find notable is of the 10 nations that we saw and reports are that there are more than 10 nations. Some just don't want to be named. We don't see Egypt. We do not see the Saudis on the list, even though the Red Sea trade is Egypt's lifeline. The Saudis are also very much dependent on that. Why have we not seen them put their name on this list? We see just a flame as the one and only regional country in this fact. The main reason why the Saudis is out of this game is because of their negotiations with Iran and also with the Houthis also. From the last April, we saw a ceasefire in Yemen. And the Saudis hope to find some permanent solution for themselves because the Saudi Yemen border is totally open. This is a huge desert. Saudis got no chance to fix this border. And during the last seven years, we saw many Yemenite attacks on the Saudi border, not just ballistic missiles and of course UAVs, but also ground forces that went inside the Saudi land. Is there a way to calculate, to put a dollar figure on how much damage has been done by these five out of seven shipping companies just suspending all transit? How much global oil prices are going to raise, for instance? Yesterday, we saw that the price raised by about 1% to 2%. The European natural gas raised up by about 13% during about four days. Moreover, if you would like to understand, when we speak about Israel, the shipping prices will raise up at least 80%. So this is honestly totally insane. This is all the products that we import from China, for example, or cars also from South Korea. The prices will raised up for sure. So did you say 18 or 80, 80? 80% the shipping values were raised up by about 80%, not 80%. How is Israel supposed to maintain an economy at all given shipping cross-increase of that number? This is a great question. Why I think that Israel is very happy from Minister Lloyd's decision, because Israel, by the self, can't fix this problem. This is about 2,000 kilometers from Israel. So Israel doesn't have the real abilities to fix this problem. And maybe with the British and the French navies, they will fix it. At the same time, I've got to emphasize that because there is no real regional power houses inside the spec, I am very optimistic from the near future. If you're seeing all these shipping companies suspend their trade through the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden as a whole, is this not going to have serious economic blowback in Iran, too, as the masterminds of this? Are they not damaging themselves in the process? Absolutely not, because 91% out of the Iranian oil exports go to China. So it goes from the Persian Gulf to Urmus and then through the Indian Ocean to finally China. Moreover, if we look on the commodities exports, the most of the Iranian commodities exports go to about 15 neighbors of Iran. So Iran is very happy at the end of the day. Until now, we didn't see real impacts on Iran. It's very pathetic, because we know that Iran used, the IRGC used ships like Behrshad. This is intelligence ships inside the Red Sea. But they say over and over again, this is not us. This is the Houthis. This is the Yemenite. This is nonsense. And therefore, this is one of the main reasons that I think that Israel is very happy that the US took the leadership on this problem. Well, let's hope that that leadership comes with a permanent solution to it, Dean. Thank you very much for explaining just what's at stake here. Thank you, Ebenezer. And we're going to return to Mary Eisen, who has been waiting so patiently on the side while we discuss the Houthis. Mary, I want to return back to the situation in Gaza, but not just Gaza. We had been discussing Hamas and its origins, or at least its massive amount of command and control in Syria. They have similar sort of command and control being built in the West Bank as well. The day after the war in Gaza, with Hamas defeated there, obviously Hamas will still exist. They will still have command and control. Does that simply mean that Israel will be kicking the can down the road a decade while they build facilities in either Syria or in the West Bank? I don't think it's under the cover of the war against Hamas and the Gaza Strip. Israel is very active against what you just called the command and control of Hamas throughout the West Bank. In Judea and Samaria over the last two and a half months, the IDF, the Israeli Defense Forces, together with the police, with the Shin Bet, with all of the different security forces, they have been exceedingly active against what we call the command and control of Hamas in the West Bank, in the city of Jenin, in Tulkarn, in Nadlus, throughout the West Bank. And this is part of the campaign against, again, their Hamas military terror capabilities. They've been very effective. This is not something that they're leaving the arena, so they'll be able to go somewhere else. What we need to contend with is the ideology, the idea that there can be a terror organization that is a genocidal terror organization that wants to attack and physically terrorize and destroy the state of Israel. That's not all the Palestinians, and that means that we need to address that issue separately, because the biggest challenges, I think, are that I've noticed over the last few weeks, has been the enormous support of the younger generation in the West Bank to Hamas' military terror activities. And that's what should worry us, because that's about education, it's about social media, it's about the narratives, like, how can they support those acts? And the way it's being depicted is very different in the Arabic-speaking, not just Palestinian, but Arabic-speaking, media worldwide. So we are attacking those kinds of capabilities, both in the West Bank and in Lebanon or in Syria or anywhere around the world. But the future, the challenge is going to be education, social media, what youth understand and are willing to do. You mentioned that in the last about two minutes that we have left. That is a monumental struggle, because when we look at this conflict, when we look at these opinions, it feels like there's no hope that we're slated for an eternal conflict. Every single generation that never ends, is there a more optimistic answer? Is there a strategy for combating that sort of propaganda that's been built up for decades now? So I think that it's at the heart of what's been going on worldwide. And I think all of us, in this sense, 2023, for me, Mary has been a wake-up call in the sense that when we're talking about the horrific kind of dehumanizing anti-Semitism, let's take note of it, let's address it. And I'm going to say, optimistically, you and I are here. We're going to exist, and we will change the future. The big question is, of course, going to be how? Because it's not just Hamas, it's not just Iran. You have an entire Arab world that seems happy to fund this. And challenging them who outnumber us and out economy the Jewish state by orders of magnitude. And that's what we are going to have to handle. And I do think that, in that sense, we're aware. We are looking forward. In its own way, it is about education. And we're going to go down that road again and again and again. And we're going to hope there are good partners out there who are not alone. And in this state, it's not just the government or the administration in the United States. In most of Europe, certainly in Germany, we will go at this together with amazing allies. Well, certainly, let's hope that has, in fact, Colonel Mary Eisen. Thank you very much for your breakdown situation and your explanation. Thank you for being with us. We should all have a good day. Indeed. That said, we are just about out of time for this show. But we will see you again for our next broadcast. That is in just a half hour at 9 o'clock local time. Until then, you can catch up with so much more at www.i24news.tv slash en for all the stories that you will not catch anywhere else. Until then, thank you for watching. And we'll see you again very soon. Israel is in a state of war. Families completely gone down in their beds. We have no idea where is she. As our soldiers are fighting on the front lines, but the general perception is something that certainly needs to be fought as well. This week on News 24, Israel under attack. News 24 in Spanish brings the analysis and the information of the events of the war, Spades of Iron. Exclusive 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 I-24 News. Good morning and welcome to I-24 News' ongoing coverage of Israel at war. I'm Ariel Levin Waldman. Today, the United Nations Security Council will vote on a Gaza ceasefire resolution. The Arab-sponsored resolution calls for a halt to hostilities in Gaza, but was delayed because the United States said it would not pass with its earlier wording, which did not condemn Hamas for its crimes against humanity on October 7th. The United States holds veto power on the Security Council and diplomats said negotiations were taking place to get the United States, Israel's closest ally, to either abstain or vote yes on the resolution. Indications that the wording could shift to a temporary pause rather than a permanent ceasefire, this in accordance with stated U.S. policy, which also calls for the destruction of Hamas. The IDF announced that two more soldiers were killed in combat in Gaza, Master Sergeant Daniel Yako Ben-Harosh and Captain Rotem Yosef, raising the total number of slain troops since the ground operation in Gaza began to 131. Hamas released a new propaganda video in which elderly hostages are forced to read from a script demanding Israel give in to any Hamas demands for their freedom. We will not show this clear psychological warfare on our channel. The video that Hamas released is a criminal terror video. It testifies to Hamas' cruelty towards innocent elderly civilians who are in need of medical care. The world must act in order to deliver medical aid and check on the state of the hostages. We are morally obliged to do every and all efforts in order to bring the hostages back home. Our heart is with all the hostages and their families all the time, Chaim, Yoram and Amiram. I hope you hear me tonight. Know that we are doing everything, everything in order to bring you back safely. Some of your family members are already home. We will not rest until you too are returned. And we're going to open with our eye on the south where our correspondent Pierre Kloschenler is standing by just outside the city of Sterot on the border with Gaza. Pierre, walk us through the latest developments that you've seen on that front. Well, we are actually in near Kibbutz Bay Area, which is facing south of Gaza City. And Orange Mizer, our cameraman, can show you the strikes that are still pounding the area of the southern Gaza City, the Almugraka town, as well as the Salahadin axis, which in that particular sector leads to Chanyunas, which is now the shifting focal point of the ground operation that started here in this particular sector from December 2nd. There are still pockets of resistance in the Jabalia refugee camp. We hear from Palestinian media affiliated to Hamas that west of the Jabalia refugee camp, there are fierce fighting. The Sejaya is still being fought for, which is on the southeastern outskirts of Gaza City. And they announced yesterday, the IDF announced yesterday, that the division, that the brigade that was in charge of the Beth-Khanun area in the northern sector of the Gaza Strip has been completely, fully been under operational control of the Israeli army after most of the terror infrastructure was destroyed and the area now has been handed over to the Gaza division. The focus now is on Chanyunas really, which is further to the left of your monitor, about 20 kilometers away from where we are now. There's an artillery outgoing as I'm talking. And there, there are fierce fighting east and north of Chanyunas according to Palestinian media. We hear also bombing in Rafar. Palestinian media affiliated to Hamas are saying that three houses were stroke by the IDF Air Force and there are 25 casualties, fatalities in that bombing according to Palestinian media. Well, thank you very much for that update from the front, Pierre. We will be back with you over the course of the day as that situation develops. For more though, we are joined for some analysis by Colonel Mary Eisen, the director of the Institutional Institute for Counterterrorism at Reichmann University. Mary, thank you so much for joining us. Absolutely, happy to be here. I want to open with the Hamas propaganda video featuring those three elderly hostages. It's pretty obvious what their goals in this to manipulate the Israeli public into acceding to the demands for a ceasefire on almost any terms. The question is, is it effective at getting that response? So first of all, there's no question and I think we'll both agree that it impacts us. In this case, I happen to know one of those people and to see what he looks like. Two and a half months in captivity and none of them are young is certainly going to impact us. The whole issue of a terror organization in taking hostages is to create the kind of visuals that they show when they show the hostages. It's to impact us, it's to scare us. It's to make us do things that we wouldn't do otherwise. In this case, because it was a mass hostage taking, we showed three of them that there are over 130 and don't have the exact number in that sense that are in the Gaza Strip, both women, still have the children, the baby that we know nothing of. And what they're doing is they're trying to twist the aspect of terror. So at the end, yes, they are going to try to use this and in that sense, that's why terror takes hostages. They want to use it. And now the question is not, do we stand firm? The end, we need to get the hostages back. Then it becomes the art of negotiation and negotiating with the terror organizations means, yes, standing a bit strong and firm opposite the photographs but still absolutely understanding that we are going to have to pay a heavy price to be able to get back our citizens, to get back our people, to get back our grandfathers and our grand, that the babies, we are going to have to pay a price. So it's part of what's going on. Mary, in light of all the bad news you've had regarding hostages over the last week or so, is there still a prevailing hope among the military establishment and Israel's leaders that a military operation to retrieve the hostages is still possible? The military operation in that sense to retrieve the individuals we've said from the beginning, it's not that I'm part of the idea but what both these are, the defense forces, the defense establishment have always said is that the hostages are spread all over the place. They showed three and as we've heard in the small amount of information that's been released that the hostages were held separately all over the place. They were kidnapped from their homes in the north, they were up north, from the south, they were down south. They're in a variety of different places. So to do an operation would never be to bring all 130, it would be able to bring two here, three there with the kind of event that happened last week with three hostages were killed by Israeli troops and such an erroneous and I'll say in that sense, a military bad decision but it's a military decision in the time of war. This isn't going to repeat or trying to do so but it would never be that kind of a picture of look we've brought them all back at once. So I think that there will be the capability to do small places hopefully but that much more of it is about negotiating about releasing from Israel the price that we'd have to pay which would be Palestinian prisoners but at this stage the military operation is very much impacting the Hamas. They're not in a position to be able to like just negotiate whatever they want. That military pressure definitely changes their capabilities. Mary, we're going to discuss so much more in a brief moment so stay with us but first I want to turn our eye to the North Live where our correspondent Zach Anders is standing by on the border with Lebanon. Zach, walk us through the latest developments and escalations we've seen on that front. Good morning. Yesterday was another day of strikes from Southern Lebanon as many as seven different strikes not all being claimed by Hezbollah as these strikes appeared to late in the evening cause damage in Kiret Shemona with apparently what appears to be rockets we still don't have confirmation whether this was bits of an intercepted rocket or the rocket itself hitting a kindergarten and another building starting a fire the EMTs, the paramedics and Magandavidam the National Ambulance Service saying that there were no injuries in both strikes. This of course happening late at night so no one was in the kindergarten fortunately but another momentous day in some of these communities many of them evacuated but still these strikes and attacks continue. And Zach, we're hearing reports as you just mentioned not all of which are Hezbollah likely Hamas and it's not just from Lebanon new reports in Israeli media show Hamas possibly opening up a new front in Syria with a small squad they're building there. What have we seen of enemy activity in other surrounding countries? Well, we actually seen quite a bit of activity from Hezbollah in Southern Lebanon and that's why the IDF says it was targeting earlier in the week or last week rather positions inside Southern Syria belonging to a Hezbollah senior official and also positions of the Syrian army. The Syrian army has been involving itself apparently in a couple of fronts with state television in Jordan late last night saying they foiled a plot to infiltrate their border with militants that had equipment, anti-tank mines and that Jordanian security forces were there at the border to stop this. It's unclear who exactly these militants align themselves with or which faction they appear from but it does seem with the political situation being as it is in Lebanon and in Syria that some of these groups have been operating with impunity and moving around these countries without being hassled or apprehended by the state's security forces themselves. So these are events that likely we won't get much clarity for given the media landscape and the security situation in both countries for some time but it is another serious concern here for the amount of activity, militant activity that's taking place in both countries and you can see that more and more of these events happening with shuttling weapons around and firing from positions in the south of both countries. Well thank you very much Zach for that report from the Northern border. We'll be back with you over the course of the day as the situation there develops. We now return to Mary Eisen though. Mary that last question I asked for Zach reports in local media showing that Hamas has plans to open another front from Syria as well having moved dozens of their operatives into position and moving equipment across Syria. A serious threats more of the same and from what I understand the Syrian government doesn't exactly like Hamas operating out of their territory. Well let's take us back in almost a decade to what is the country called Syria that borders us to the northeast. Inside Syria there was a horrific war for over a decade. The winner if you can call it in that sense of that war was the dictator who managed to survive. That's Bashar Assad. Syria under Bashar Assad and continues to be that way to this day is not what you would call a sovereign country that knows what's going on inside. Not only that but aside from Hamas Hezbollah for many, many years has been the one Hezbollah, the terror organization and one in Lebanon that has been building Syrians military. And so when we talk about Syrians military that Zach mentioned before that inside Jordan they said that Syrian military forces were going to attack inside Jordan. Here I need to bring in both Hezbollah and Hamas. Hamas's headquarters used to be in Syria. When the war started in Syria in 2011 the heads of Hamas that we all know nowadays are mainly in Qatar and a bit in Turkey. They moved from Syria out of Syria because of the war. But there's always been a Palestinian terror organization presence inside Syria. The heads of Palestinian Islam and Jihad were always hosted in Damascus. They haven't come back but they still have that presence. There are Palestinian refugee camps from 1948 and from 67 inside Syrian territory. And because of that Hamas does have a place that they could go to. They have places that they could both train and use. I don't see this as the main threat. The main threat from Hamas is both from the enormous amount of what they built in the Gaza Strip. Their threat is also more from my point of view in Judea and Samaria, the West Bank and slightly from Lebanon than what we see in Syria. In Syria it's that combination of Hezbollah helping the military, of Hezbollah also helping the other Shiite groups that are in both the southern Golan Heights and throughout Syria. Thank you very much, Mary. Stay with us. We're gonna be coming back to you but first we have to discuss some of those other Shiite groups backed by Iran. But of course being the Houthis, the nations of the world, now banding together to stop the Iran backed Houthis from ending international shipping through the Bab on Mandib Straits. The United States announced that it would lead a 10 nation task force to end Houthi missile and drone attacks. At risk is a full 12% of global sea trade. That's a threat to cripple the entire global economy. The announcement comes after the oil titan BP which is responsible for 20% of global oil trade announced the suspension of all oil trade through the Red Sea alongside multiple shipping giants that includes Maersk. And it's notable for Israel because about 30% of Israel's imports pass through the Red Sea. So in the Red Sea we're leading a multinational maritime task force to uphold the bedrock principle of freedom of navigation. Iran's support for Houthi attacks on commercial vessels must stop. These attacks are reckless, dangerous and they violate international law. And so we're taking action to build an international coalition to address this threat. And I would remind you that this is not just a US issue. This is an international problem and it deserves an international response. And we're joined now by Dean Shmuel Alms, geopolitical energy analyst at Globes. Thank you very much, Dean, for joining us on this program. Walk us through just how much of the world's economy is at stake here due to the threats posed by the Houthis. If we look on the latest news, we speak about five out of seven biggest shipping companies worldwide that decided to stop using the Red Sea. They share out of all the world market, not just the European or the regional market. We speak about 60%. So it's huge, it's massive. And for my own opinion, this is the main reason why we see the latest news. So we did this particular task force. Now what I find notable is of the 10 nations that we saw and reports are that there are more than 10 nations, some just don't want to be named. We don't see Egypt, we do not see the Saudis on the list even though the Red Sea trade is Egypt's lifeline. The Saudis are also very much dependent on that. Why have we not seen them put their name on this list? We see just a thing as the one and only regional country in this fact. The main reason why the Saudis is out of this game is because of their negotiations with Iran and with also with the Houthis in also from the last April, we saw a ceasefire in Yemen and the Saudis hope to find some permanent solution for themselves because the Saudi Yemen border is totally open. This is a huge desert. The Saudis got no chance to fix this border. And during the last seven years, we saw many Yemenite attacks on the Saudi border, not just ballistic missiles and of course UAVs, but also ground forces that went inside the Saudi land. Is there a way to calculate, to put a dollar figure on how much damage has been done by these five out of seven shipping companies just suspending all transit? How much global oil prices are going to raise, for instance? Yesterday, we saw that the price raised by about 1% to 2%. European natural gas raised up by about 13% during about four days. And moreover, if you would like to understand when we speak about Israel, the shipping prices will raise up at least 80%. So this is honestly totally insane. This is all the products that we import from China, for example, or cars also from South Korea. The prices will raised up for sure. Did you say 18 or 80, 80? 80% the shipping values were raised up by about 80%, 80, not 80. How is Israel supposed to maintain an economy at all given shipping cross-increase of that number? This is a great question. Why I think that Israel is very happy from Minister Lloyd's decision because Israel by itself can't fix this problem. This is about 2,000 kilometers from Israel. So Israel doesn't have the real abilities to fix this problem. And maybe with the British and the French navies, they will fix it. At the same time, I've got to emphasize that because of there is no real regional power houses inside the spec, I am very optimistic from the near future. If you're seeing all these shipping companies suspend their trade through the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden as a whole, is this not going to have serious economic blowback in Iran too as the masterminds of this? Are they not damaging themselves in the process? Absolutely not because 91% out of the Iranian oil exports go to China. So it goes from the Persian Gulf to Oremuz and then drew the Indian Ocean to finally China. Moreover, if we'll look on the commodities exports, the most of the Iranian commodities exports go to about 15 neighbors of Iran. So Iran is very happy at the end of the day. Until now, we didn't see real impacts on Iran that it's very pathetic because we know that Iran used, IRGC used ships like Bershad, that this is intelligence ships inside the Red Sea, but they say over and over again, this is not us, this is the whoot, this is the Yemenite, this is nonsense. And therefore, this is one of the main reasons that I think that Israel is very happy that the US took the leadership on this problem. Well, let's hope that that leadership comes with a permanent solution to it, Dean. Thank you very much for explaining just what's at stake here. Thank you, Evanist. And we're going to return to Mary Eisen, who has been waiting so patiently on the side while we discuss the hooties. Mary, I want to return back to the situation in Gaza, but not just Gaza. We had been discussing Hamas and its origins, or at least its massive amount of command and control in Syria. They have similar sort of command and control being built in the West Bank as well. The day after the war in Gaza, with Hamas defeated there, obviously Hamas will still exist. They will still have command and control. Does that simply mean that Israel will be kicking the can down the road a decade while they build facilities in either Syria or in the West Bank? I don't think it's under the cover of the war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Israel is very active against what you just called the command and control of Hamas throughout the West Bank. In Judea and Samaria over the last two and a half months, the IDF, the Israeli Defense Forces, together with the police, with the Shin Bet, with all the different security forces, they have been exceedingly active against what we call the command and control of Hamas in the West Bank, in the city of Jinni and in Tukar, in Nadlouz throughout the West Bank. And this is part of the campaign against again their Hamas military terror capabilities. They've been very effective. This is not something that they're leaving the arena so they'll be able to go somewhere else. What we need to contend with is the ideology, the idea that there can be a terror organization that is a genocidal terror organization that wants to attack and physically terrorize and destroy the state of Israel. That's not all the Palestinians, and that means that we need to address that issue separately. Because the biggest challenge, I think Ariel, that I've noticed over the last few weeks has been the enormous support of the younger generation in the West Bank to Hamas' military terror activities. And that's what should worry us because that's about education, it's about social media. It's about the narratives, like how can they support those acts? And the way it's being depicted is very different in the Arabic-speaking, not just Palestinian, but Arabic-speaking media worldwide. So we are attacking those kinds of capabilities both in the West Bank and in Lebanon or in Syria or anywhere around the world. But the future, the challenge is going to be education, social media, what youth understand and are willing to do. You mentioned that in the last about two minutes that we have left. That is a monumental struggle because when we look at this conflict, when we look at these opinions, it feels like there's no hope that we're slated for an eternal conflict every single generation that never ends. Is there a more optimistic answer? Is there a strategy for combating that sort of propaganda that's been built up for decades now? So I think that it's at the heart of what's been going on worldwide. And we think all of us in this sense, 2023, for me, Mary has been a wake-up call in the sense that when we're talking about the horrific kind of dehumanizing anti-Semitism, let's take note of it, let's address it. And I'm going to say optimistically, you and I are here, we're going to exist and we will change the future. The big question is, of course, going to be how? Because it's not just Hamas, it's not just Iran. You have an entire Arab world that seems happy to fund this and challenging them who outnumber us and out-economy the Jewish state by orders of magnitude. And that's what we are going to have to handle. And I do think that in that sense, we're aware, we are looking forward in its own way. It is about education and we're going to go down that road again and again and again. And we're going to hope there are good partners out there who are not alone. And in this state, it's not just the government or the administration in the United States. In most of Europe, certainly in Germany, we will go at this together with amazing allies. Well, certainly let's hope that has an effect. Colonel Mary Eisen, thank you very much for your breakdown situation and your explanation. Thank you for being with us. We should all have a good day. Indeed. That said, we are just about out of time for this show, but we will see you again for our next broadcast. That is in just a half hour at nine o'clock local time. Until then, you can catch up with so much more at www.i24news.tv slash en for all the stories that you will not catch anywhere else. Until then, thank you for watching and we'll see you again very soon. In a state of war, families completely done down in their beds. We have no idea where she has our soldiers are fighting on the front lines, but the general perception is something that certainly needs to be fought as well. 24 News is ongoing coverage of Israel at war. I'm Ariel Levin Waldman. Today, the United Nations Security Council will vote on a Gaza ceasefire resolution. The Arab sponsored resolution calls for a halt to hostilities in Gaza, but was delayed because the U.S. said it would not pass with its earlier wording, which did not bother to condemn Hamas for his crimes against humanity on October 7th. The United States holds veto power on the Security Council and diplomats said the negotiations were taking place to get the U.S., that's Israel's closest ally, to abstain or to vote yes on the resolution. The indications are that the wording could shift to a temporary pause rather than a permanent ceasefire, this in accordance with stated U.S. policy, which also still calls for the destruction of Hamas. The IDF announced two more soldiers were killed in combat in Gaza. Master Sergeant Daniel Yacov Ben-Harosh and Captain Rotem Yosef, raising the number of slain troops since the ground operation in Gaza began to 131. Hamas released a new propaganda video in which elderly hostages are forced to read a script demanding Israel give in to any of Hamas' demands for their freedom. We will not show this clear psychological warfare on our channel, but we will show the Israeli response. The video that Hamas released is a criminal terror video. It testifies to Hamas' cruelty towards innocent, elderly civilians who are in need of medical care. The world must act in order to deliver medical aid and check on the state of the hostages. We are morally obliged to do every and all efforts in order to bring the hostages back home. Our heart is with all the hostages and their families all the time, Chaim, Yoram and Amiram. I hope you hear me tonight. Know that we are doing everything, everything in order to bring you back safely. Some of your family members are already home. We will not rest until you too are returned. And we are going to open live in the north of Israel where our correspondent, Zach Andrews, is standing by along the Lebanon border. Zach, walk us through the latest developments we've seen on that front. Continued Hezbollah fire, including yesterday, hitting a kindergarten in another building, starting a fire in Kyriac, Shemona. No injuries and no reported casualties throughout the day. Hezbollah announcing yesterday that 111 of their militants have been killed since the fighting began. An additional 20-plus civilians and journalists have been killed in this conflict on both sides. There's action in Syria, southern Syria as well, and on the border with Jordan. Jordan officials on state television last night claiming that some Syrian militants were attempting to cross the border with heavy weapons and anti-tank mines. They were, that effort was thwarted. It's all against the backdrop of this escalation here that's stretched across three different nations. Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan. Have we seen any updates in international efforts to try to de-escalate things with Lebanon? We know the French have vested interest and have been central in negotiations, but we haven't heard anything lately. Yeah, out of D.C. and New York, Axios is reporting that the U.S. is attempting to start this Hezbollah agreement with a six-mile buffer. That's something that we had heard of. Rumbles here for some time, but now it seems like it's officially coming from the White House stance, not this 1701 agreement that would create an even wider buffer all the way to the Lattani River. It seems like U.S. officials want to start with just a six-mile buffer. That's a significant number because it would put most of the weapons inside Hezbollah's arsenal out of range, including these ATGMs, the anti-tank guided missiles that we've seen launched time and time again, and it would give more time for the Iron Dome to intercept any of the rockets, the heavy rockets that are launched from Southern Lebanon. One of the big challenges here is that they've been launched from such close proximity that it does challenge the Patriot air defense system supplied by the U.S. with the amount of response time. It does not mean it's wholly ineffective, but it does become more challenging. And so this six-mile buffer does seem like a start to the negotiations. Of course, the Israelis, if you take some of the public statements, they do continue to push for that entire buffer to the Lattani River, so it will have to see where these negotiations go. Well, thank you very much, Zach, for that update from the Northern border. We're going to discuss this more in studio, though. We are joined now by Colonel Jack Neria, former deputy head of assessment with Israeli military intelligence, as well as Caleb Ben-David, host of I-24 News's The Rundown. Thank you both for being in the studio with me. I'm going to open with you, Jack, because we are hearing about these international efforts. Do we suspect any of these are going to bear fruit when it comes to pushing his bullet back, or will this have to come down to the military? Well, there are two parties in this equation. The negotiators, the initiators, and the other side is the Lebanese. On the one hand, we have the negotiators, the U.S. and the France and others. On the Lebanese side, there's no party to discuss with, because there's no government, there's no president. And according to the Lebanese constitution, only a president can agree to any agreement. Now, add to this the fact that Hezbollah has declared very openly, only yesterday, that it has no intention to obey any of those advices to withdraw, because as long as the war in Gaza keeps on going on, they will not budge. And certainly, from areas they believe that they are deeply Lebanese. As a Lebanese force, defending the Lebanese interests, they have no interest at all to withdraw from the area to the six miles that you are evoking here earlier. So the only way to convince Hezbollah is just by Manu militari, by the means of arms. And this could happen any day, because we've seen escalation going on day after day. And now the Israel is just targeting from its bank. Which was not the case a few days ago. It was only answering to the provocation of Hezbollah. Now Israel is initiating targeting definitely positions and warehouses and depots and command centers. And the flare-up is not limited only to Lebanon. It engulfs also Syria. And certainly Jordan is something that we have to look at because there's definitely an effort from the Hezbollah coalition together with Iran to infiltrate Jordan in order to use the Jordanian territory as a way to introduce weapons into the West Bank. And only yesterday and the day before yesterday, there was really battles that raged on the border between Syria and Jordan. And the Jordanians just caught the quantities of equipment, including heavy missiles, that were supposed to go into the West Bank. Do we believe that the Jordanian side is capable of maintaining that level of interception? Well, we trust the Jordanian army. They are very good soldiers. They are well-trained and well-equipped and they are very motivated. They are most of them Bedouins that are loyal to the king. I think that we have here a partner, I mean a potential ally because the interests of Jordan and Israel just coincide here. And definitely I believe that behind the corridors there's a talk going on between us and the Jordanians about the threat coming from the North. I want both of you to stay with me for a minute because first we are going to go to our correspondent in the South, Pierre Kloschen. There is standing by just near the Gaza border. Pierre, walk us through the latest developments we've seen on the Southern Front in this war. Right, we've seen earlier around and Orange Meiser will show you the area which is facing the south of the Gaza Strip. We've seen hair strikes on the refugee camp of Jebalia on the northern outskirts of the city and you've seen maybe Sejaia which is also the site of artillery pounding we've seen earlier on the southeastern outskirts of Gaza City and what Orange Meiser our cameraman is showing you right now is the area of south of Gaza City, the little town of Al Mugraqah where there's fierce fighting as well as the Salahadin axis which leads to Chanyunes which is 20 kilometers further down south. Now there's also heavy fighting on the outskirts of the central refugee camps of El Borej Nusserat and Direl Balach and also fierce fighting in Chanyunes itself in the heart of Chanyunes where the 98 Brigade of Commando units are fighting as well as on the eastern and northern sector of outskirts of Chanyunes. Further down south in Rafar, Palacian media affiliated to Hamas are talking about an air raid on three houses possibly against presumed Hamas targets on this town which is sitting on the border between Egypt and the Gaza Strip in which 25 people were killed according to Palacian media in Gaza affiliated to Hamas but we have obviously no confirmation from the IDF about that. Ariel. Well thank you very much Pierre for that update from the south. We're gonna come back to the studio to discuss what the day after might look like in Gaza as the IDF continues to campaign against Hamas. Well the Israeli people are divided though not that divided on who should be in control after the war. A new poll done by Channel 12 showing that the overwhelming majority about 57% says it cannot be the Palestinian authority. About 19% say it can be and the rest just don't know. To discuss this further, we are joined here in studio Kayla Ben-David, host of the rundown to break down some of the numbers and some of the other polling that we've seen. Right, first of all the issue of the Palestinian authority. Of course we've heard the government, the current government say they don't want to see the Palestinian authority there. Bring its policies, the pay to slave policy of compensating families of people who commit terror attacks there and the same kind of incitement that is taught in schools. But there is a problem. Who is going to take care of the civil side of life in the Gaza Strip if not the Palestinian authority? There have been ideas floated. Maybe some of the so-called moderate Arab states that have signed the Abraham Accords or could sign such as Bahrain UAE and Saudi Arabia can be involved. But they've made it clear they won't take part unless the Palestinian authority is involved. There are reports coming of a plan of Washington now for some of the money from the Palestinian authority being diverted to officials in the Gaza Strip who at one point were working for the Palestinian authority prior to the Hamas takeover. Betzalos Motrips, the finance minister, has already said he'll resign. He's threatening to resign and bring down the government if that plan goes ahead. So I think it's going to be a very tricky, I wouldn't be surprised if somehow it's going to be officials or people connected with the Palestinian authority but they'll come up with a new name for them in Gaza. It may be some kind of, as you do in diplomacy, you kind of avoid the obvious by just giving it a new name. And they keep on throwing around the word a revitalized Palestinian authority. This might just go back to what you said, a new name, same people, but who is even available right now that the United States, Israel, can say, okay, we don't really like them but they're at least acceptable. There's nobody in the current leadership, Mahmoud Abbas, of course, for years, Mahmoud Abbas is not going to change. Mohammad Stuy, the prime minister, is even more militant, it would seem, than Mahmoud Abbas. One name that has come up is Mahmoud Dahlan, who was a former Fatah member with a following in Gaza and the West Bank who was basically forced into exile into the UAE by Mahmoud Abbas. But he's getting no indication. It's not clear he has any kind of following. So there is a problem again there. I suspect there's going to be some kind of effort maybe to be added by the Americans to find some individuals less known to the public that are less identified with the PA as who will be responsible for the civil sword in Gaza. And while we're on the subject of polling, I want to address some of the other ones. In the aftermath of the October 7th attack, Israel's political landscape has also been shattered. New polling also by Channel 12 showing the dominant Likud party would drop from its current 32 seats to just 18. Opposition leader, Yair Lapid, could be at just 15 himself. But Benny Gantz's National Unity Party would sweep up a full 37, the former general, becoming the main political powerhouse in Israel. And this is at a time when the majority of the country wants to see new elections brought forward, though not right now per se. I'm going to turn back to you, Caleb, to break down some of the polling we just discussed. Right, so I publicly would like to see new elections. Would like to see Benny Gantz probably replace Prime Minister Netanyahu. But looking at that, you have to say there's no motivation for those parties in government to go to elections because they'll lose seats. Only the ultra-orthodox parties stay the same and they have no reason to go to a possible more liberal left government that will be less sympathetic. Looking at those polls, you understand why the ultra-orthodox parties got their money in the most recent, their funding in the most recent budget to keep them in the government. Remember, it's very difficult to bring down a government now in Israel. You need no confidence vote of 61 voting against the government. Not abstaining, you have to vote against it. That would mean you would need five defectors from the current government to bring down a government, go to elections. Where would you even get them? There's only one even semi-feasible scenario that's been floated about, is that at least five members of Likud, that one who deposed Benjamin Netanyahu and reformed the party, do what they call a soft, no confidence motion. They were behind the scenes deal, maybe with Benny Gantz's party to bring down Benjamin Netanyahu, but put an interim Likud Prime Minister in place. But that would take a lot of political coverage from some of those figures that like Uli Edelstein and Danny Denone, et cetera, that really haven't seen yet to challenge Benjamin Netanyahu for leadership of the Likud. And in theory, if we do see a new government along the lines that we're seeing here, what would change policy-wise for Israel? Well, first of all, the Bose party's Benny Gantz would be from the center. He would have to bring in a coalition more from the center, maybe some dissent to theft from Yashiti. They may try to revive a peace process and so forth. Not likely that it would go anywhere, but at least maybe certainly they would try to do that. There's a possibility of a government without the ultra-orthodox because there are enough seats now. We see Yisrael Baitaino. We saw that at a Victor Lieberman's party now going up to, I think, eight, nine seats. So that would be another possible. Some legislation like enlistment or national service, cultural orthodox, something that people are talking about now. So there definitely could be changes. But again, I repeat, even though the public mood is there, it's very difficult to bring down a government now in Israel and there's almost no motivation for the members of the current government to go to elections in which they are gonna lose their seats. And so I wanna return back to the security discussion with you, Jack, because as we're discussing changes in Israel, change in the Palestinian Authority, there's still the fact that you need to change Hamas on the ground. And while the IDF is certainly demolishing a lot of their command and control structure in Gaza, the simple fact is they're not just in Gaza. We have discussed the possibility of the West Bank becoming Hamas territory as we just discussed the weakness of the current PA. We've seen a new report in Israel's Khan News this morning of Hamas building and activating brigades in Syria, even if you remove them from Gaza, what's stopping them from simply rebuilding and being in the exact same position in 10 years and somewhere else? Well, you're right. We might meet again Hamas in Lebanon or from the Lebanese border, we're from the Syrian border inside the West Bank. I mean, they are still there and they are very active. Hamas as a movement, a religious social movement and political movement is still quite vivid.  This is definitely something that we have to live with. And the more we realize that in the West Bank we have to constantly put pressure on Hamas from the beginning of the war to now more than 2,400 terrorists have been arrested, and more than 300 Palestinian terrorists have been killed by Israel. So the pressure keeps on going by Israel. And this is essential. Otherwise, I mean, if we leave the terrain and without doing anything, then Hamas will take over in a moment. And if elections are being conducted today in the West Bank, be sure that Hamas will be the winner. So the Americans are well aware of it. And when they speak about the new Palestinian or vitalized Palestinian authority, they have in mind, this Palestinian authority is not what they mean. They mean something else to be discussed, to be negotiated. And I believe that as far as I know, the American administration, they would not come and impose a solution on Israel. But they would come to Israel and say, OK, you don't want our proposal. What do you propose? And I remember Clinton saying to Rabin, after the Hebron massacre, what do you propose? This is what we are asking. This is what we are presenting. We are not forcing you to accept. We're not imposing. This is the way the Americans pressurize. Say, what is your option? Give us some options. Give us something that we can work on. And while they are doing that, we know that they are discussing with the PA, actual PA, the training of new police in order to prepare them to go into Gaza after Israel withdraw from the Gaza, according to the American administration. This is what's going on right now. So on the one hand, we have to understand that we might meet Hamas as a political faction inside the new Palestinian authority, or we will have a Palestinian authority, a technocrat Palestinian authority, very different from what we know today. I just want to add to everybody needs to keep in mind that Hamas rose to power in Gaza while Israel was still in full military control of the Gaza Strip, at an extent that nobody's even talking about now. It was a creation of Israel. Right. Hamas kidnapped Israeli soldiers while Israel was in full occupation. It started firing rockets while Israel was in still full occupation. It started building tunnels while Israel was still there. I think Israeli officials should tamp in expectations. It is one thing to say, we are not going to allow Hamas to get to the level where it'll be able to carry out an attack on the scale of October 7th. That is an achievable military goal. But to call about eradicating Hamas is not a realistic goal. It wasn't when Israel was in full control of the Gaza Strip. It may want to being a terror group than a full out kind of militia that it is now. But expectations should be dampened. Well, expectations might be dampened. But of course, the stakes are still as high as anyone can imagine. Mentioning October 7th, we are going to bring some more testimony from that day. What happened at the Nova Music Festival in the Raheem Desert, where around 400 people were slaughtered. This is the story of Alina Tovberg, who was a makeup artist, a body painter there who found herself on the front line. She survived only through a series of miracles. Our Ori Shapira brings us her story. Alina Tovberg didn't believe in divine intervention until October 7th. For years, she's worked as a makeup artist and body painter. Working at the Nova Festival was only natural for her. We came to the field on Thursday and stayed for the entire weekend. We decided to stay at Nova. I was attracted to the wonderful people who came there, the perfect place and the unique atmosphere in the air. So I decided to stay. At 6.20 a.m., we saw this amazing sunrise. I was just finishing painting Eleanor, my last painting. I gave her a hug and a kiss and went on dancing on the floor. Everybody was waiting for the sunrise. 15 minutes earlier, my partner Tomer gave me a glass of tea and told me that he wanted to go to the car because he was tired. It seemed very strange to me because he never acts like that. But in retrospect, this is what for me resembled the first miracle that happened to me. I looked to the horizon and I saw heavy smoke, very dark. To see the smoke inside this beautiful place felt very strange to me. And I immediately closed my makeup kit. Suddenly, we started to hear booms. The music was still on. We could hear the bits. But we heard the shooting mixed with the trance music. After three to four minutes, they shut down the music. And the chaos began. It was a sharp transition. People were at their peak.  And you find yourself in a war. At a certain point, Alina's partner could not start his car. The group found itself in a survivor scenario. We split into two areas. In one place, I took care of girls who were in panic. In the other spot, Tomer tried to fix the car. He asked his brother to bring people to help. And he got a call from his brother and heard that he had to go to the car. And he told me that he had to go to the car. He asked his brother and heard that he'd been shot. Tomer understood that there were terrorists in the area. He managed to find someone who helped him fix the car. This angel is not with us today.  A black truck tried to crash into us, but Tomer managed to escape. It was another miracle. It was a matter of seconds. Then we managed to get to Reim. He opened the gate for us. He didn't open the door. Alina says that everyone she's painted that night survived. One of the people Alina remembers the most is a young woman named Elinor, who Elina painted. When the Hamas attack began, Elinor hid inside the fridge and survived. In this short soundtrack, we hear the moments of horror when Elinor is saying goodbye to her eight-year-old son.  Elinor was like... I painted on Elinor, an image of a woman, full of light and hope. More than two months after October 7, Elina took part in an exhibition in Tel Aviv dedicated to the Nova Rave. She rebuilt the boot where she walked at that night. I remember every painting I made that night. Each painting I made that night became a part of me. It became a part of my family, a part of my story. There is Elina, and there is my art. And there is this night. And this night laid down roots. He suddenly... gave it to me. October 7th was the deadliest attack on Israel in its history. And we've just been discussing before that report how Hamas will very likely endure in some form after the war. If that's the case, I'm going to reopen to the discussion here. Is there a solution? Again, solutions, I would say. As I said, and I'm going to repeat, there is a way to prevent that from happening again, from October 7th from happening again. But there is no easy answer to say that we're just going to be... This is a war where Hamas is going to surrender or we announce the mission accomplished. We've defeated Hamas. No. This is going to be an ongoing battle that could last years and generations, not at the current pace, but certainly at a reduced pace. You know, Hamas is not the red brigades or there are some anarchists in the place. It's a closed circle that you can fight and eliminate. It is a popular movement. It's a social movement. It's a religious movement. These are the Muslim brethren.  Most of the regime, most of the moderate Arab regimes, are happy with what's happening today. They wish Israel finishes with the job that eliminated Hamas with an offshot of the Muslim brethren in Egypt. They try to topple the regime in Egypt in 2011. I mean, this is what we're talking about. Well, let's hope there is something that resembles an answer at some point in the future. That said, we are out of time. We will see you in a half hour for our next broadcast, 10 o'clock local time. Thanks for watching. Israel is in a state of war. Families completely gunned down in their beds. We have no idea where we see as our soldiers are fighting on the front lines, but the general perception is something that certainly needs to be fought as well. 24 News' ongoing coverage of Israel at war. I'm Ariel Levin Waldman. Today, the United Nations Security Council will vote on a Gaza ceasefire resolution. The Arab sponsored resolution calls for a halt to hostilities in Gaza, but was delayed because the U.S. said it would not pass with its earlier wording, which did not bother to condemn Hamas for his crimes against humanity on October 7th. The United States holds veto power on the Security Council, and diplomats said that negotiations were taking place to get the U.S., that's Israel's closest ally, to abstain or to vote yes on the resolution. The indications are that the wording could shift to a temporary pause rather than a permanent ceasefire, this in accordance with stated U.S. policy, which also still calls for the destruction of Hamas. The IDF announced two more soldiers were killed in combat in Gaza, Master Sergeant Daniel Iakov Ben-Harosh and Captain Rotem Yosef, raising the number of slain troops since the ground operation in Gaza began to 131. Hamas released a new propaganda video in which elderly hostages are forced to read a script, demanding Israel give in to any of Hamas's demands for their freedom. We will not show this clear psychological warfare on our channel, but we will show the Israeli response. The video that Hamas released is a criminal terror video. It testifies to Hamas's cruelty towards innocent, elderly civilians who are in need of medical care. The world must act in order to deliver medical aid and check on the state of the hostages. We are morally obliged to do every and all efforts in order to bring the hostages back home. Our heart is with all the hostages and their families all the time, Chaim, Yoram and Amiram. I hope you hear me tonight. Know that we are doing everything, everything in order to bring you back safely. Some of your family members are already home. We will not rest until you too are returned. And we are going to open live in the north of Israel where our correspondent, Zach Andrews, is standing by along the Lebanon border. Zach, walk us through the latest developments we've seen on that front. Continued Hezbollah fire, including yesterday hitting a kindergarten and another building, starting a fire in Kyriac, Shemona, no injuries and no reported casualties throughout the day. Hezbollah announcing yesterday that 111 of their militants have been killed since the fighting began. An additional 20 plus civilians and journalists have been killed in this conflict on both sides. There's action in Syria, southern Syria as well and on the border with Jordan. Jordan officials on state television last night claiming that some Syrian militants were attempting to cross the border with heavy weapons and anti-tank mines. They were, that effort was thwarted. It's all against the backdrop of this escalation here that's stretched across three different nations, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan. Have we seen any updates in international efforts to try to de-escalate things with Lebanon? We know the French have vested interest and have been central in negotiations, but we haven't heard anything lately. Yeah, out of DC and New York, Axios is reporting that the US is attempting to start this Hezbollah agreement with a six mile buffer. It's something that we had heard of. Rumbles here for some time, but now it seems like it's officially coming from the White House stance, not this 1701 agreement that would create an even wider buffer all the way to the Latani River. It seems like US officials want to start with just a six mile buffer. That's a significant number because it would put most of the weapons inside Hezbollah's arsenal out of range, including these ATGMs, the anti-tank guided missiles that we've seen launched time and time again, and it would give more time for the Iron Dome to intercept any of the rockets, the heavy rockets that are launched from Southern Lebanon. One of the big challenges here is that they've been launched from such close proximity that it does challenge the Patriot air defense system supplied by the US with the amount of response time. It does not mean it's wholly ineffective, but it does become more challenging. And so this six mile buffer does seem like a start to the negotiations. Of course, the Israelis, if you take some of the public statements, they do continue to push for that entire buffer to the Latani River. So it will have to see where these negotiations go. Well, thank you very much, Zach, for that update from the Northern border. We're going to discuss this more in studio though. We are joined now by Colonel Jack Neria, former deputy head of assessment with Israeli military intelligence, as well as Caleb Ben-David, host of I-24 News is at the rundown. Thank you both for being in the studio with me. I'm going to open with you, Jack, because we are hearing about these international efforts. Do we suspect any of these are going to bear fruit when it comes to pushing Hezbollah back, or will this have to come down to the military? Well, there are two parties in this equation. The negotiators, the initiators, and the other side is the Lebanese. On the one hand, we have the negotiators, the US and the France and others. On the Lebanese side, there's no party to discuss with, because there's no government, there's no president. And according to the Lebanese constitution, only a president can agree to any agreement. Now, add to this the fact that Hezbollah has declared very openly, the only yesterday, that it has no intention to obey any of those, of those advices to withdraw, because as long as the war in Gaza keeps on going on, they will not budge. And certainly from areas, they believe that they are deeply Lebanese. So, I mean, as a Lebanese force defending Lebanese interests, they have no interest at all to withdraw from the area to the six miles that you are evoking here earlier. So, the only way to convince Hezbollah is just by Manu military, by the means of arms. And this could happen any day, because we've seen escalation going on day after day. And now Israel is just targeting from its data bank, which was not the case a few days ago. It was only answering to the provocation of Hezbollah. Now Israel is initiating targeting definitely positions and warehouses and depots and command centers. And the flare up is not limited only to Lebanon. It engulfs also Syria. And certainly Jordan is something that we have to look at because there's definitely an effort from the Hezbollah coalition together with Iran to infiltrate Jordan in order to use the Jordanian territory as a way to introduce weapons into the West Bank. And only yesterday and the day before yesterday, there was really battles that raged on the border between Syria and Jordan. And the Jordanians just caught the quantities of equipment, including heavy missiles that were supposed to go into the West Bank. Do we believe that the Jordanian side is capable of maintaining that level of interception? Well, you know, we trust the Jordanian army. They are very good soldiers. They are well trained and well equipped and they are very motivated. They are Bedouins, most of them Bedouins that are loyal to the king. I think that we have here a partner, I mean a potential ally, because the interests of Jordan and Israel just coincide here. And definitely I believe that behind the corridors there's a talk going on between us and the Jordanians about the threat coming from the North.  There is standing by just near the Gaza border. Pierre, walk us through the latest developments we've seen on the Southern Front in this war. Right. We've seen earlier around an orange miser will show you the area which is facing the south of the Gaza Strip. We've seen a hair strikes on the refugee camp of Jebalia on the northern outskirts of the city. And you've seen maybe Sejaia, which is also the site of artillery pounding we've seen earlier on the southeastern outskirts of Gaza City. And what orange miser our cameraman is showing you right now is the area of south of Gaza City, the little town of Almugraca, where there's fist fighting, as well as the Salahadin access, which leads to Hanunez, which is 20 kilometers further down south. Now, there's also heavy fighting on the outskirts of the central refugee camps of El Borej, Nusserat and Direl Balach. And also fist fighting in Hanunez itself in the heart of Hanunez, where the 98 Brigade of commando units are fighting, as well as on the eastern and northern sector of outskirts of Hanunez. Further down south, in Rafah, Palestinian media affiliated to Hamas are talking about an air raid on three houses, possibly against presumed Hamas targets on this town, which is sitting on the border between Egypt and the Gaza Strip, in which 25 people were killed according to Palestinian media in Gaza affiliated to Hamas. But we have obviously no confirmation from the IDF about that. Ariel? Well, thank you very much, Pierre, for that update from the south. We're going to come back to the studio to discuss what the day after might look like in Gaza as the IDF continues to campaign against Hamas. Well, the Israeli people are divided, though not that divided, who should be in control after the war? A new poll done by Channel 12 showing that the overwhelming majority, about 57 percent, says it cannot be the Palestinian Authority. About 19 percent say it can be, and the rest just don't know. To discuss this further, we are joined here in studio. Caleb Bendevet, host of The Rundown, to break down some of the numbers and some of the other polling that we've seen. Right. First of all, the issue of the Palestinian Authority. Of course, we've heard the government, the current government say they don't want to see the Palestinian Authority there, bring its policies, pay-to-slay policy of compensating families of people who commit terror attacks there, and the same kind of incitement that is taught in schools. But there is a problem. Who is going to take care of the civil side of life in the Gaza Strip if not the Palestinian Authority? There have been ideas floated, maybe some of the so-called moderate Arab states like the Abraham Accords or Qudsai, such as Bahrain UAE and Saudi Arabia can be involved, but they've made it clear they won't take part unless the Palestinian Authority is involved. There are reports coming of a plan of Washington now for some of the money from the Palestinian Authority being diverted to officials in the Gaza Strip who at one point were working for the Palestinian Authority prior to the Hamas takeover. Betsalos Motribs, the finance minister has already said he'll resign, he's threatening to resign and bring down the government if that plan goes ahead. So I think it's going to be a very tricky, I wouldn't be surprised if somehow it's going to be officials or people connected with the Palestinian Authority but they'll come up with a new name for them in Gaza. It may be some kind of as you do in diplomacy, you kind of avoid the obvious by just giving it a new name. And they keep on throwing around the word, a revitalized Palestinian Authority. This might just go back to what you said, a new name, same people, but who is even available right now that the United States, Israel, can say okay we don't really like them but they're at least acceptable. There's nobody in the current leadership, Mahmoud Abbas. Of course, the ailing for years Mahmoud Abbas is not going to change. Mohammad Stuy, the prime minister, is even more militant than Mahmoud Abbas. He'll come up as Mahmoud Dachlan, who is a former Fatah member with a following in Gaza and the West Bank who was basically forced into exile into the UAE by Mahmoud Abbas. But he's getting no indication. It's not clear he has any kind of following. So there is a problem. Again there, I suspect there's going to be some kind of effort maybe spearheaded by the Americans to find some individuals less known to the public that are less identified by the CIA as who will be responsible for this civil-sorting Gaza. While we're on the subject of polling I want to address some of the other ones in the aftermath of the October 7th attack. Israel's political landscape has also been shattered. New polling also by Channel 12 showing the dominant Likud party would drop from its current 32 seats to just 18. Opposition leader Yair Lapid would be at just 15 himself but Benny Gantz's National Unity Party would be the general becoming the main political powerhouse in Israel. And this is at a time when the majority of the country wants to see new elections brought forward though not right now per se. I'm going to turn back to you Caleb to break down some of the polling we just discussed. Public clearly would like to see new elections. Would like to see Benny Gantz probably replace Prime Minister Netanyahu but looking at that you have to say there's no motivation for those parties in government to go to elections and only the ultra-orthodox party stay the same and they have no reason to go to a possible more liberal left government that will be less sympathetic. Looking at those polls you understand why the ultra-orthodox parties got their money in the most recent funding in the most recent budget to keep them in the government. Remember it's very difficult to bring down a government now in Israel. You need no confidence vote of 61 voting against the government you need five defectors from the current government to bring down a government go to elections. Where would you even get them? There's only one even semi feasible scenario that's been floated about is that at least five members of Likud that want to depose Benjamin Netanyahu and reform the party do what they call a soft no confidence motion they do a behind the scenes deal maybe with Benny Gantz's party to bring down Benjamin Netanyahu but put an interim Likud Prime Minister in place but that would take a lot of political coverage from some of those figures that like Uli Edelstein and Danny Denone etc. who that really haven't seen yet to challenge Benjamin Netanyahu for leadership of the Likud. And in theory if we do see a new government along the lines that we're seeing here what would change policy wise for Israel? Well first of all the most parties Benny Gantz would be from the center he would have to bring in a coalition more from the center maybe some dissent from Yashiti they may try to revive a peace process and so forth not likely that it would go anywhere but at least maybe certainly they would try to do that there's a possibility of a government without the ultra-orthodox because there are enough seats now we see Yisrael Baitaino we saw that at Victor Lieberman's party now going up to I think eight nine seats maybe another possible some legislation like enlistment or national service ultra-orthodox something that people are talking about now so there definitely could be changes but again I repeat even though the public mood is there it's very difficult to bring down a government now in Israel and there's almost no motivation for the members of the current government to go to elections in which they are going to lose their seats. So I want to return back to the security discussion with you Jack because as we're discussing changes in Israel change in the Palestinian Authority there's still the fact that you need to change Hamas on the ground and while the IDF is certainly demolishing a lot of their command and control structure in Gaza the simple fact is they're not just in Gaza we have discussed the possibility of the West Bank becoming Hamas territory as we just discussed the weakness of the current PA we've seen a new report in Israel's con news this morning of Hamas building and activating brigades in Syria even if you remove them from Gaza what's stopping them from simply rebuilding and being the exact same position in 10 years and somewhere else? Well you're right we might we might meet again Hamas in Lebanon or from the Lebanese border from the Syrian border inside the West Bank I mean they are still there and they are very active Hamas as a movement religious social movement and political movement is still quite vivid and the fact that you remove it from Gaza doesn't mean that you kill it this is definitely something that we have to live with and the more we realize that in the West Bank we have to constantly put pressure on Hamas from the beginning of the war to now more than 2,400 terrorists have been arrested more than 300 Palestinian terrorists have been killed by Israel so the pressure keeps on going by Israel and this is essential otherwise I mean if we leave the terrain without doing anything the Hamas will take over in a moment and if elections are being conducted today in the West Bank be sure that Hamas will be the winner so the Americans are well aware of it and when they speak about the new personalized Palestinian Authority this Palestinian Authority is not what they mean they mean something else to be discussed to be negotiated and I believe that as far as I know the American Administration they would not come and impose a solution on Israel but they would come to Israel and say okay you don't want us you don't want our proposal what do you propose and I remember Clinton saying to Rabin after the Hebron massacre what do you propose this is what we are asking we are not forcing you to accept we are not imposing this is the way the Americans pressurize say what is your option give us some options give us something that we can work on and while they are doing that we know that they are discussing with the PA the training of new police in order to prepare them to go into Gaza after Israel we draw from the Gaza according to the administration this is what's going on right now so on the one hand we have to understand that we might meet Hamas as a political faction inside the new Palestinian Authority all we will have a Palestinian Authority a technocrat Palestinian Authority very different from what we know today I just want to add to keep in mind that Hamas rose to power in Gaza while Israel was still in full military control of the Gaza Strip at an extent that nobody is even talking about now it was the creation of Israel right Hamas kidnapped Israeli soldiers while Israel was in full occupation it started firing rockets while Israel was still full occupation it started building tunnels while Israel was still there Israeli officials should tamp in expectations it is one thing to say we are not going to allow Hamas to get to the level where it will be able to carry out an attack on the scale of October 7th an achievable military goal but to call about eradicating Hamas is not a realistic goal it wasn't when Israel was in full control of the Gaza Strip it may want to be a terror group than a full out kind of militia that it is now but expectations should be dampened expectations might be dampened but of course the stakes are still as high as anyone can imagine mentioning October 7th we are going to bring some more testimony from that day what happened in the Nova Music Festival in the Reim Desert where around 400 people were slaughtered this is the story of Alina Tovberg who was a makeup artist a body painter there who found herself on the front line she survived only through a series of miracles our Auri Shapira brings us her story Alina Tovberg didn't believe in divine intervention until October 7th for years she's worked as a makeup artist and body painter working at the Nova Festival was only natural for her we came to the field on Thursday and stayed for the entire weekend we decided to stay at Nova I was attracted to the wonderful people who came there the perfect place and the unique atmosphere in the air so I decided to stay at 6.20 am we saw this amazing sunrise I was just finishing painting Eleanor, my last painting I gave her a hug and a kiss and went on dancing on the floor everybody was waiting for the sunrise 15 minutes earlier my partner Tomer gave me a glass of tea and told me that he wanted to go to the car because he was tired it seemed very strange to me because he never acts like that in retrospect this is what for me resembled the first miracle that happened to me I looked to the horizon and I saw heavy smoke very dark to see the smoke inside this beautiful place felt very strange to me and I immediately closed my makeup kit suddenly we started to hear booms the music was still on we could hear the bits but we heard the shooting mixed with the trance music after 3 to 4 minutes they shut down the music and the chaos began it was a sharp transition people were at their peak and suddenly everything was shut down and you find yourself in a war at a certain point Tomer's partner could not start his car the group found itself in a survivor scenario we split into two areas in one place I took care of girls who were in panic in the other spot Tomer tried to fix the car he asked his brother to bring people to help and he got a call from his brother and heard that he'd been shot Tomer understood that there were terrorists in the area we found someone who helped him fix the car this angel is not with us today we drove like crazy to Kibbutz Reyim a black truck tried to crash into us but Tomer managed to escape it was another miracle it was a matter of seconds then we managed to get to Reyim God opened the gate for us Alina says that everyone she's painted survived one of the people Alina remembers the most is a young woman named Elinor who Elina painted when the Hamas attack began Elinor hid inside a fridge and survived this short soundtrack we hear the moments of horror when Elinor saying goodbye to her eight year old son I painted on Elinor the image of a woman full of light and hope more than two months after October 7 Elinor took part in an exhibition in Tel Aviv dedicated to the Nova Rave she rebuilt the boot where she walked at that night I remember every painting I made that night each painting I made that night became a part of me it became a part of my family a part of my story there is Alina and there is my art and there is this night and this night laid down roots October 7th was the deadliest attack on Israel in its history and we've just been discussing before that report how Hamas will very likely endure in some form after the war is there a solution? again solutions I would say as I said and I'm going to repeat there is a way to prevent that from happening again from October 7th from happening again but there is no easy answer to say that we're just going to be this is a war where Hamas is going to surrender or we announce the mission accomplished we've defeated Hamas no this is a going to be an ongoing battle for the years and generations not at the current pace but certainly at a reduced pace Hamas is not the red brigades or there are some anarchists in the place a closed circle that you can fight and eliminate it is a popular movement it's a social movement it's a religious movement these are the Muslim brethren and they are present all over the Arab world most of the moderate Arab regimes are happy with what's happening today they wish Israel finishes with the job eliminate Hamas with an offshot of the Muslim brethren in Egypt they try to topple the regime in Egypt in 2011 I mean this is what we're talking about let's hope there is something that resembles an answer at some point in the future that said we are out of time we will see you in a half hour for our next broadcast 10 o'clock local time Israel is in a state of war families completely gun down in their beds we have no idea where is she as our soldiers are fighting on the front line but the general perception is something that certainly needs to be fought as well … Welcome to I 24 News' ongoing coverage of Israel at war I'm Aureol Levin Waldmann Today the UN Security Council will vote on a Gaza ceasefire resolution the Arab sponsored resolution calls for halt hostilities in Gaza, but was delayed Because the U.S. said it would not pass with its earlier wording, wording that did not condemn Hamas for their crimes against humanity on October 7th. The U.S. does hold veto power on the Security Council and diplomats say negotiations were taking place to get the United States, Israel's closest ally, to abstain or vote yes on the resolution. The indications that the wording could shift to a temporary pause rather than a permanent ceasefire, such a pause, would be in accordance with stated U.S. policy. That also calls for a destruction of Hamas. The IDF announced that two more soldiers were killed in combat in Gaza. That's Master Sergeant Daniel Yaakov Ben-Harosh and Captain Rotem Yosef, raising the number of slain troops since the ground operation in Gaza began to 131. Hamas released a new propaganda video in which elderly hostages are forced to read a script demanding Israel give in to any Hamas demands for their freedom. We're not going to show this clip for its clear psychological warfare, but we will show the Israeli response to it. The video that Hamas released is a criminal terror video. It testifies to Hamas' cruelty towards innocent, elderly civilians who are in need of medical care. The world must act in order to deliver medical aid and check on the state of the hostages. We are morally obliged to do every and all efforts in order to bring the hostages back home. Our heart is with all the hostages and their families all the time, Chaim, Yoram and Amiram. I hope you hear me tonight. Know that we are doing everything, everything in order to bring you back safely. Some of your family members are already home. We will not rest until you too are returned. And we are going to turn our eye live to the southern border where our correspondent Pierre Kloschenler is standing by at the Israel Gaza border. Walk us through the latest developments we're seeing on that front. I'm going to show you the lay of the destroyed land of Sejaia, which is just behind me. Orange miser is zooming at the black smoke elevating from Sejaia. And then further south as the camera is panning, you can see the little town of Almugraca, which is south of Gaza City. There is fierce fighting there because the main access to Hanyunas is still not under control of the Israeli forces and they're trying to get control. There are airstrikes in the central refugee camps further south, but you can't see it from here in the Elborej, Direl Balach and Nusserat refugee camps and further south some 15 miles away from where we are in Hanyunas, fierce fighting on the eastern outskirts and in the heart of Hanyunas, where the 98 Brigade of commando unit is operating there since the 2nd of December. So a lot of activity here. We hear the wearing of the roller blade of the gunships. We hear the roar of the air force. We hear from time to time the loud outgoing pounding of the Israeli artillery and even sometimes you can hear from here and we're four kilometers away from the Gaza Strip. You can hear the ratata of the heavy machine guns that are mounted on armored vehicles. This is more or less what we can see from here, but earlier on there was a strike in the refugee camp of Jebaliah which is further north and also in Rafah on the Egyptian Gaza border where three homes were destroyed and the Palestinian media affiliated to Hamas is talking about a death toll of 29 people. But you know, the Israeli army who operates in the southern sector of the Gaza Strip knowing that there's over 80% of the 2.2 million population of the whole Gaza Strip ground into half of the Strip makes the operation more careful, especially regarding the non-involved population. Well, thank you very much Pierre for that report from the front. We'll be back with you over the course of the day for more. We are going to turn to our studio discussion panel and we've got a very full panel today. We have Yaakov Lepin, military and strategic affairs analyst at the Jewish News Syndicate. We also have Caleb Bendivid, our I-24 News host of the rundown and Ariel Oceran, our Middle East correspondent. Ariel, I am going to open with you with a breaking report that has appeared in the Al-Aqbar news media saying that we are hearing from French negotiators that Hezbollah might be in a position to negotiate to move their forces north of the Latani River in accordance with UN Resolution 1701. Ariel, walk us through what the report actually says and how credible this sounds. Right, Ariel. So this report in Lebanese media, Pro-Hizballah, Lebanese media comes as French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna. She visited Lebanon yesterday meeting with high-ranking Lebanese officials with Prime Minister Mikati, with Pro-Hizballah's parliament spokesperson, Nabih Berri, and also the leaders of the military and international peacekeeping force. Now, according to this report, which is basically trying to give the behind the scenes of these meetings, they're showing some willingness of Hezbollah to some sort of deal that would also see its forces being pushed back to the Latani River in accordance to UN Resolution 1701 that is not being implemented since it was agreed upon in 2006 by the UN. But also that there would be some sort of French, Lebanese, American peacekeeping force in addition to UN peacekeeping force. Now, what this report is trying to do is to show that there is willingness on the part of Hezbollah to the diplomatic avenue. However, I think we do need to take this with a grain of salt, because at the end of the day, Hezbollah is not going to willingly just uproot its military infrastructure that it worked for years to establish south of the Latani River and also on the border with Israel and just adhere to this to avoid military option. I will note what did catch my eye perhaps more in this report is the fact that the French mediators are saying that Israel is interested in war, they are keen on war, and while Hezbollah can cause damage to Israel, what Israel will do will be horrific for Lebanon. And this is coming from a pro-Hezbollah newspaper, and so I think this is something that we need to take both at the same time, but at the end of the day, whether we should trust or count on Hezbollah to willingly accept a diplomatic solution that basically calls on it to reduce its military forces and presence along the border with Israel, I don't think we should hold our breath for that kind of outcome. I'm going to move to you, Yaakov, for more on this, because Hezbollah, in this negotiation, the French say that Israel is ready for war and that maybe Hezbollah doesn't want, but if Hezbollah doesn't want war, they wouldn't have started shooting on October 7th. They've clearly shown that they are ready to make war. So this entire report seems to be based on a foundation or an idea that at face value is incorrect. Right. I mean, 200 Shiite villages in southern Lebanon, that is the core of Hezbollah's operational base, so to speak. The lion's share of their terrorist soldiers, a lot of their rocket stockpiles. Where is that all going to go? Are they going to suddenly uproot that and move it north of the Lytani? I think we have a lot of reasons to be skeptical about that. They may be trying to play games with the international community. What would be the threshold? How would we define a retreat to the Lytani River? Will it be uniformed Hezbollah terrorists while they keep a lot of their terrorists and civilian clothing in the villages with the weapons under the bed and in the bunkers? It's very difficult to enforce. I agree with your assumption, Hezbollah over the past two years has demonstrated that it is not deterred by the prospect of war. And we should also keep in mind that southern Lebanon is actually a shadow Hezbollah state. It's not just the military presence of Hezbollah. There's a whole social program for the Shiite Lebanese population. They provide them with food vouchers and energy. It's independent of the Lebanese state. So I think that Hezbollah is feeling actually very confident. It feels like it's a kind of win-win situation. It's either going to claim that it deterred Israel, or it will eventually drag a larger escalation, which it could support its long-term goal. And we should keep this in mind, Hezbollah's long-term goal is to take over Lebanon and spread the Islamic Iranian revolution. That's why it was founded. That's why it received $800 million a year from Iran. That's its primary goal. And that's the fuel that keeps it going. I'm going to turn back to you, Ariel, because if, as we say, we take this report with a grain of salt or, more accurately, an entire minesworth of salt, who does the release of this report actually serve? What is gained by making these claims?  This is very important for Hezbollah to show. This is also what Israel is showing, that it is open to the diplomatic avenue, trying to see if there is a way to avoid a military solution. The situation on the ground, I totally agree with everything that Yaakov said, doesn't indicate that that's going to happen. Without Southern Lebanon, there isn't Hezbollah. And so you can't ask them to leave Southern Lebanon, because that's basically like asking Hamas just to leave Gaza. And they did not do that without a military option, so far with nearly 60 days inside Gaza that is not happening. So to expect Hezbollah, with the help of Iran, spent millions of dollars of building military infrastructure, underground infrastructure, infrastructure that is meant to lure Israeli forces operating on the ground into kill zones in valleys and in forests. I see no viable way for this to end in a diplomatic solution, one that Hezbollah would agree to. This report is also trying to include in. And this is something that my understanding has been talked about in the negotiations, that it's not just where Hezbollah will be, North of the Lutani, South of the Lutani, but also trying to solve the issue of the land border demarcation. They're trying to group this all together. That is a positive development. But as we've seen in the year, year and a half leading up to this, this is also something that Hezbollah is not keen on solving in the diplomatic avenue. Kolev, I want to turn to you. What is the point at all to signaling on either side that they're willing to engage in diplomacy if the preconditions for diplomacy are so many worlds apart that there's no agreement possible? Well, there's a few things. First of all, let's keep in mind the US Sixth Fleet is sitting off the coast of Lebanon kind of acting as, I would say, an intimidator to both for Hezbollah, which is one of the reasons why Hezbollah is limited as attacks within that border area, but also for Israel. Basically saying, we don't want to see this blow up into a regional war that could involve other countries. Remember, US has the interest. They have their forces in Syria and in Iraq that have been come under attack of Iran-backed militias just like Hezbollah itself. So I think certainly the US want to hear from Israel that Israel is interested in diplomacy rather than going into a shooting war that could envelope the entire region and involve the US. And Hezbollah, too, was giving some breathing room for the Lebanese government. There is also the French. By the way, it's also in the interest of France for this report to get out, to show that the French government, to give the impression she's not wasting her time there holding these talks in Lebanon. So I think there are sort of bigger parties on both sides to give that impression. The diplomatic option remains open, but as our other guests have said, there's the basic addition for reaching any kind of agreement don't seem to be there. And on the topic of a regional war, there is another party in play here, that being the Houthis who seem to have declared war on global shipping. Now the nations of the world are banding together to stop Iran's backed Houthis from ending international shipping through the Babel-Mandeb Strait entirely. The US has announced it will lead a 10 nation task force to end Houthi missile and drone attacks. At risk here is a full 12% of global sea trade as a threat to cripple the entire global economy. This announcement comes after Oil Titan BP, which is responsible for 20% of global oil trade, announced that they would suspend all oil trade through the Red Sea alongside multiple shipping giants that includes Maresk, which is about 30% of Israel's imports passing through the Red Sea and five out of seven major carriers around the world are no longer making that journey. So in the Red Sea, we're leading a multinational maritime task force to uphold the bedrock principle of freedom of navigation. Iran's support for Houthi attacks on commercial vessels must stop. These attacks are reckless, dangerous, and they violate international law. And so we're taking action to build an international coalition to address this threat. And I would remind you that this is not just a US issue. This is an international problem and it deserves an international response. And we're gonna return to our discussion panel. I'm gonna start with you, Oriel Saran, because there's been just another incident involving the Houthis only about 30 minutes ago. Right, so usually we get our first indications of incidents in the Red Sea from the UK's Maritime Trade Operations Organization, and they just reported an incident not too long ago regarding a report of an incident. Still not clear what the nature of this incident is off the coast of Djibouti, that is just across the Babanmandab Strait from Yemen. Authorities are investigating, vessels are advised to transit with caution and report any suspicious activity to the UK's Trade Monitoring Organization. Now, the way these events play out, first there's this initial report, and then US sent com and then the Houthis themselves admit to carrying out an attack while we still don't have details of what this incident is. It would indicate that even after this announcement by the US of forming this coalition, the Houthis potentially are not too concerned about that. And I just wanna touch on the reason why the Secretary Austin said that this is not only a Israel or a regional problem is because not only does 11% of the world's trade pass through the Red Sea and then the Suez Canal and the Babanmandab Strait, but basically, if you're talking about its effect on global trade, just imagine if ships, instead of being able to go through the Red Sea, Suez Canal, the Mediterranean, for ships going from Asia to Europe, if they can't go through the Red Sea, they would have to go all around Africa and that would mean price spike in prices all across the board on many kinds of goods, whether it's food or consumer goods. And so this is indeed something that has many countries in the world concerned, also in the region. And while we don't know the identity of all the countries who are participating, we do know that at least one Arab country is there. Bahrain, I wouldn't be surprised if at the end of the day we learned that there are additional Arab countries part in this coalition. Right, I just said that. I mean, the three obvious names that are missing from this coalition are the three countries besides Israel most directly affected by this situation. You have Egypt, which is losing revenue from the Suez Canal. We have Jordan, who's port at Aqaba is also being choked off, just like Israel's port in a lot. And of course, Saudi Arabia. Most of these, a lot of these attacks are happening in the economic waters, economic waters of Saudi Arabia. So clearly they're not joining this coalition in part because they don't wanna get involved in this conflict with the Houthis, which is by extension a conflict with Iran. I think Bahrain is interesting because Saudi Arabia will often, of course, it's hard to imagine Bahrain would join the coalition openly without approval of Saudi Arabia. They're also home to the U.S. 5th. Right. So I mean, they kind of have to. But the Saudis like to use Bahrain as kind of a bellwether to, as they did in the Abraham Accords to say, we're there, but we're not there. We're not publicly there, but this is a signal that we're supporting. Right, and just by the way, the three countries that Kalev just mentioned, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan, all three countries have been actively part in thwarting attacks against Israel. Saudi Arabia and Egypt downed drones and cruise missiles that flew over its territory aimed at Israel. Jordan did the same from a missile launched from Iraq. I think this is another indication as to where the real interests in the region lie, whether they can openly admit to it that still remains to be seen. I'm gonna pass to you, Yaakov, because we have seen the formation of this international task force take a lot longer than anybody expected. In fact, if you think about it, there's already supposed to be an international task force that deals with exactly this. This is the international task force 151, which operates in these waters supposed to shut down piracy and similar incidents. Where have they been so far? Why have they done nothing and why did it take a separate U.S.-led task force? Well, that's a great question. And we can add to that another question, which is why did it take so long for the United States and the international community to understand that what began as a blockade on Israel's Red Sea trade would quickly develop into a blockade on international shipping and an act of terrorism that targets the flow, the free flow of goods in international waters. Clearly, Iranian orchestrated using their Yemenite Hezbollah, we can call the Houthis their Yemenite Hezbollah, set up using very similar systems and models and thinking in doctrine, flooding them with weapons. And we had the Biden administration trying to take the Houthis off the terrorists a couple of years ago that blew up in everybody's face. The idea of trivializing Iran's proxies and thinking that they can be managed and believing that this is only an Israeli problem, all of these assumptions are now crumbling. So it is good that this task force is being formed and it's moving, it's too late, but it's better late than never. And I think the big question going forward is whether this task force is going to take on offensive strike missions on Houthi positions in Yemen, their firing positions, or is it going to sort of fall back to a defensive interception kind of posture where it intercepts drones, missiles, and tries to defend the shipping. If it's only defensive, I think that will send the wrong message to Iran and the entire Iranian axis. If it's offensive, that would be the right message to send and the test is on them. The test is, you know, we will, time will tell where that will lead. I also imagine, Caleb, that if they're only taking a defensive posture, intercepting strikes, it's going to send the same message of weakness to the shipping companies themselves. They're not going to feel the confidence to start moving their assets to the region again if they don't believe the problem is actually dealt with. Right, though the problem or the dilemma facing the U.S., I mean, there was an incredible irony here because the U.S., remember, Saudi Arabia was engaged in a war with the Houthis backing the former government in Yemen. The Biden administration pressured the Saudis to basically step down from that war and reach some kind of negotiated deal that left the Houthis in control of large part of Yemen. Now, reportedly, one of the reasons it may have been delayed is that the Saudis were pressuring the U.S. not to take offensive action, direct offensive action against the Houthis, because they didn't want to see that civil war that embroiled them blow up again. So, again, the Biden administration, which many argued about the Biden administration policy when it was pressuring Saudi Arabia not to deal with the Houthis, and that's kind of come back to bite them in this regard. So, really, I think it should not be, just to echo what Yaakov said. This is not a problem that should be seen in isolation. It's a problem with the Houthis. This is a regional problem and the proper address for this is Iran. And that brings us back to what you were saying before, Yaakov, about bad assumptions made on the part of the United States who has been very insistent this entire war. They do not want to see it break out into a regional war. It seems to me this is already a regional war. It is already a regional conflict. We have kinetic firepower being used in the Red Sea. We have exchanges of fire on the Lebanese-Israeli border. And the primary arena remains the Gaza Strip. It may not remain the primary arena in the coming weeks or months. Lebanon might replace it as being the primary arena. But certainly, we're seeing a regional conflict take shape. The Americans are certainly interested in trying to contain it and to not let it turn into a full-scale regional conflict. They have their superpower global considerations and priority list. They're still interested in not being sucked into a Middle Eastern war after Iraq, after Afghanistan, and the desire to prioritize the Chinese challenge in the Pacific arena. But there are wish lists, and then there are challenges that reality throws in your face as a superpower. And I may not be able to hold on to that desire. Certainly, the Iranian access seems to not be playing ball with that American agenda. I'll just add the uptick. Also, the uptick in attacks on US forces in Iraq and Syria by Iran linked militias since October 7. And there was one report out of the US media saying there were people, officials in the Pentagon, that were a little frustrated that the Biden administration, for the very reasons Yaakov just laid out, were not responding more strongly against those attacks. I mean, we're talking about over 100 attacks in that time period. This is a very significant escalation, and that also affects the criticism coming out of Washington. And Yaakov, I'll pass the last question to you. If this is the case, which we're seeing now, can the Iranian access truly be contained, or does it have to simply be dealt with? I think the whole notion of containment after October 7 needs to be treated with extreme skepticism. The idea of letting Iran and its proxies build up force indefinitely based on the idea of deterrence and carrots and sticks. In the Gaza Strip, that has failed miserably catastrophe. It was a tragedy for the Israeli people in the way that that concept failed. And as a result, I think one of the main lessons learned, at least from Israel's perspective, is monsters cannot be allowed to grow, certainly not on the border, but also further away. The Iranian nuclear program is inching forward. All of these threats are inching forward, and they require action. How that action is to be taken? Can it be done in conjunction with allies, which would be the optimal way to do this? I think there's a lot to discuss. But the idea of containing Iran, I think, is really should be disregarded at this stage. And given that sort of backdrop, if Iran can't be contained, what will bring the United States on board for more direct action against Iran? Well, I think there's going to be, first of all, one of these incidents could get out of hand, and you could see significant American casualties. For example, if there were a attack, for example, on a US naval ship in this new force, or among those forces in the Middle East. And remember, I'm going to say, we have a US election coming up, a presidential election. Any of these incidents could become fodder in a US presidential election be held up against President Biden on the charges showing weakness. This is a sore point after the withdrawal from Afghanistan, for example. But again, that's counterbalanced by this sub-motive isolationism in the United States. But the problem is, if you put off making painful decisions today or taking painful steps today, you could be feeling a lot more pain in the future. Well, thank you all for this discussion, for everything that we've just broken down for everyone. But we are out of time, at least for now. But join us again on our next broadcast. That's 11 o'clock local time, just a half hour from now. Until then, thank you all for watching. We'll see you again very soon. Is in a state of war. Families completely done down in their beds. We have no idea where is she. As our soldiers are fighting on the front lines, but the general perception is something that certainly needs to be fought as well. And welcome to I-24 News' ongoing coverage of Israel at war. I'm Ariel Levin-Waldman. Today, the UN Security Council will vote on a Gaza ceasefire resolution. The Arab-sponsored resolution calls for a halt to hostilities in Gaza, but was delayed because the US said it would not pass with its earlier wording, wording that did not condemn Hamas for their crimes against humanity on October 7th. The US does hold veto power on the Security Council, and diplomats say negotiations were taking place to get the United States, Israel's closest ally, to abstain or vote yes on the resolution. The indications that the wording could shift to a temporary pause rather than a permanent ceasefire, such a pause, would be in accordance with stated US policy, policy that also calls for a destruction of Hamas. The IDF announced that two more soldiers were killed in combat in Gaza. That's Master Sergeant Daniel Yaakov Ben-Harosh and Captain Rotem Yosef, raising the number of slain troops since the ground operation in Gaza began to 131. Hamas released a new propaganda video in which elderly hostages are forced to read a script, demanding Israel give in to any Hamas demands for their freedom. We're not going to show this clip for its clear psychological warfare, but we will show the Israeli response to it. The video that Hamas released is a criminal terror video. It testifies to Hamas' cruelty towards innocent, elderly civilians who are in need of medical care. The world must act in order to deliver medical aid and check on the state of the hostages. We are morally obliged to do every and all efforts in order to bring the hostages back home. Our heart is with all the hostages and their families all the time, Haim, Yoram and Amiram. I hope you hear me tonight. Know that we are doing everything, everything in order to bring you back safely. Some of your family members are already home. We will not rest until you too are returned. And we are going to turn our eye live to the southern border where our correspondent Pierre Kloschenler is standing by at the Israel Gaza border. Pierre, walk us through the latest developments we're seeing on that front. I'm going to show you the lay of the destroyed land of Sejaia, which is just behind me. Orange Mizer is zooming at the black smoke elevating from Sejaia. And then further south as the camera is spanning, you can see the little town of Almugraka, which is south of Gaza City. This fear is fighting there because the main access to Hanyunas is still not under control of the Israeli forces. And they're trying to get control. There are airstrikes in the central refugee camps further south, but you can't see it from here in the El Burej, Direl Balach and Nusserat refugee camps. And further south, some 15 miles away from where we are in Hanyunas, fierce fighting on the eastern outskirts and in the heart of Hanyunas, where the 98 Brigade of commando unit is operating there since the 2nd of December. So a lot of activity here. We hear the wearing of the rotor blade of the gunships. We hear the roar of the air force. We hear from time to time the loud, outgoing pounding of the Israeli artillery. And even sometimes you can hear from here and we're four kilometers away from the Gaza Strip. You can hear the ratata of the heavy machine guns that are mounted on armored vehicles. This is more or less what we can see from here. But earlier on there was a strike in the refugee camp of Jebaliah, which is further north. And also in Rafah on the Egyptian Gaza border, where three homes were destroyed and the Palestinian media affiliated to Hamas is talking about a death toll of 29 people. But, you know, the Israeli army who operates in the southern sector of the Gaza Strip knowing that there's over 80% of the 2.2 million population of the whole Gaza Strip crammed into half of the Strip makes the operation more careful, especially regarding the non-involved population. Well, thank you very much Pierre for that report from the front. We'll be back with you over the course of the day for more. We are going to turn to our studio discussion panel and we've got a very full panel today. We have Yaakov Le Pen, military and strategic affairs analyst at the Jewish News Syndicate. We also have Caleb Bendivid, our I-24 News host of the rundown and Ariel O'Sarran, our Middle East correspondent. Ariel, I am going to open with you with a breaking report that has appeared in the Al-Aqbar news media saying that we are hearing from French negotiators that Hezbollah might be in a position to negotiate to move their forces north of the Latani River in accordance with UN Resolution 1701. Ariel, walk us through what the report actually says and how credible this sounds. Right, Ariel. So this report in Lebanese media, Pro-Hizballah, Lebanese media comes as French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna. She visited Lebanon yesterday meeting with high-ranking Lebanese officials with Prime Minister Mikati, with Pro-Hizballah's parliament spokesperson, Nabih Berri, and also the leaders of the military and international peacekeeping force. Now, according to this report, which is basically trying to give the behind-the-scenes of these meetings, they're showing some willingness of Hezbollah to some sort of deal that would also see its forces being pushed back to the Latani River in accordance to UN Resolution 1701 that is not being implemented since it was agreed upon in 2006 by the UN, but also that there would be some sort of French, Lebanese, American peacekeeping force in addition to UN peacekeeping force. Now, what this report is trying to do is to show that there is willingness on the part of Hezbollah to the Diplomatic Avenue. However, I think we do need to take this with a grain of salt because at the end of the day, Hezbollah is not going to willingly just uproot its military infrastructure that it worked for years to establish south of the Latani River and also on the border with Israel and just adhere to this to avoid military option. I will note what did catch my eye, perhaps more in this report, is the fact that the French mediators are saying that Israel is interested in war, they are keen on war, and while Hezbollah can cause damage to Israel, what Israel will do will be horrific for Lebanon. And this is coming from a pro-Hezbollah newspaper and so I think this is something that we need to take both at the same time, but at the end of the day, whether we should trust or count on Hezbollah to willingly accept a diplomatic solution that basically calls on it to reduce its military forces and presence along the border with Israel. I don't think we should hold our breath for that kind of outcome. I'm going to move to you, Yaakov, for more on this because Hezbollah, in this negotiation, the French say that Israel is ready for war and that maybe Hezbollah doesn't want, but if Hezbollah doesn't want war, they wouldn't have started shooting on October 7th. They've clearly shown that they are ready to make war. So this entire report seems to be based on a foundation or an idea that face value is incorrect. Right. I mean, 200 Chiite villages in southern Lebanon, that is the core of Hezbollah's operational base, so to speak. The lion's share of their terrorist soldiers, a lot of their rocket stockpiles, where is that all going to go? Are they going to suddenly uproot that and move it north of the Litani? I think we have a lot of reasons to be skeptical about that. They may be trying to play games with the international community. What would be the threshold? How would we define a retreat to the Litani River? Will it be uniformed Hezbollah terrorists while they keep a lot of their terrorists in civilian clothing in the villages with the weapons under the bed and in the bunkers? It's very difficult to enforce. I agree with your assumption, Hezbollah over the past two years has demonstrated that it is not deterred by the prospect of war, and we should also keep in mind that southern Lebanon is actually a kind of shadow Hezbollah state. It's not just the military presence of Hezbollah. There's a whole social program for the Chiite Lebanese populatio