Welcome to the special edition on I-24 News. And by 11th or coming July from our Tel Aviv studios, thanks for joining me this hour. It is day 81 of war between Israel and Hamas. Palestinian media has reported a heavy IDF bombardment and deadly raids over nights in the central and southern parts of the Gaza Strip. The continued fighting coming as the Israel Defense Forces continues to push on with its ground offensive to dismantle Hamas and the threat it poses on the Jewish state. On Tuesday morning, the Israeli military announced the deaths of two more soldiers killed in the fighting, bringing the IDF's death toll since the start of its ground incursion to 158. Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has laid out three prerequisites for peace in an op-ed recently published in the Wall Street Journal. They are to destroy Hamas, demilitarize Gaza and de-radicalize the whole of Palestinian society. Well, to start with our broadcast, let's cross to our correspondent, Pierre Clashidlo, who is standing by for us in the south of the country, more specifically the Israel Gaza border, Pierre. Yesterday, being Monday, when we spoke there, almost seemed to be a lull overnight before rocket alert sirens went off around 16 hours afterward. What's the story today being Tuesday? There were rocket alerts at 11.17 a.m. local time to be precise. There was the last rocket alert on Nachal Oz, which is in this direction. And just 10 minutes earlier, there was also a rocket alert on the city of Zderot facing the northern sector of the Gaza border after a 10-day lull on that city of 30,000 inhabitants, which has been evacuated for most of its residents. Right, and Pierre, this morning, the horrific news of another two soldiers that were killed in combat in the Gaza Strip. The overall consensus is that while the numbers are gut-wrenching, that keeps growing, that given the guerrilla warfare in the Gaza Strip, in particular with Hamas at the moment, that this number is still kept relatively low? I think yes. It's relatively low. You wouldn't say that to the families of those soldiers who died. The soldiers who died and four others were severely injured, give an indication of the kind of warfare that's going on in the southern and northern sector of the Gaza Strip. One of the soldiers was a tanker, and he was killed in a clash. That means that you have Hamas terrorists popping out of tunnel shafts, for instance, or from the rubbles of a building and shooting at close range at soldiers. Three others were severely wounded by motor fire. Another one was killed with a rocket-propelled grenade on his tank. Another one, a soldier was killed in a northern Gaza Strip. The rest of them were in the southern front, which shows that the southern front is heating up in comparison to the northern sector of the Gaza Strip, where there's only one pocket of resistance by the Aldarash Tufach battalion of Hamas in the center of Gaza City. But apart from that, the thrust of the offensive is on the central refugee camps and on the city of Hanyunas. I want to show you, with Daniel Boko, cameraman, what's going on here in the sector, which is just south of Gaza City, in Shejaya al-Muraka and Jucho Redik, which are three small towns south of Gaza City. It's been wrapped in a cloud, in a black cloud. There's been intensive bombardments by the Israeli Air Force, by the artillery and the Navy on the three refugee camps in the central sector of the Gaza Strip, al-Murazi, al-Burej and Nusrat, especially on the axis leading in between those refugee camps. Belts of Fire call it the Palestinian media affiliated to Hamas because they're bombing areas very intensively. In Hanyunas also, belts of fire around the Nasser Hospital. Hospitals are used by Hamas underneath the ground and above ground as operational command and control centers. And as a result, the Israeli Army besieges those hospitals. And Nasser hospitals seem to be in Hanyunas, one of those hospitals that the Israeli Army wants eventually to take over. Correspondent Pierre Clushenberg giving us all the updates this morning on the Israel-Gaza border. We'll be crossing live to you a little later. Thank you for that. And in Israel's north, the idea of struck launch sites and other nearby areas in southern Lebanon after two projectiles were fired toward the northern Israeli community of Manara on Monday. There were no reports of injuries from that attack as the border community has been largely evacuated. Meanwhile, according to the semi-official Iranian news agency Tasnim, a senior officer in Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps was killed Monday and alleged Israeli airstrike in the Syrian capital of Damascus. The elimination of Brigadier General Razim al-Savi has prompted threats from Tehran with Iran's foreign minister warning that Tel Aviv faces a tough countdown. And Iran's President Ibrahim Marisi vowing that Israel will certainly pay for this crime. Well, joining me now from Russia, Ayan in Central Israel is Reserve Brigadier General Yosef Kupavasa, the former Director General of Israel's Ministry of Strategic Affairs and the former head of the Research Division for IDF Military Intelligence. Good morning to you. And thank you so much for joining me here this morning. Good morning. Good morning. Now, the roads in northern Israel seem to still be closed as Israel-Chesbola clashes intensify. Is Israel progressing with Chesbolo? Does the terror group's retreats or at least threats at least temporary? No, I think that not much has changed on the north and front yet. We cannot count it by the day and look at the changes just because one day there was less fire from the north. It's still an ongoing escalation, ongoing tension that there is a war being fought over there. And both sides are interested in making sure that it doesn't explode until it turns into a wide-scale war. But in this context, they carry out all kinds of activities that do have the potential of bringing an escalation, a further escalation. And it's very unstable, the situation in the north as it looks right now. Now, a lot of these communities have been largely evacuated, similar to the south in the sense of hundreds of thousands of Israelis being moved toward the center of the country. If that is the case, what is the purpose of Chesbolo shooting over a lot of these drones and projectiles knowing that it's not hitting civilian-populated areas? Well, these are the targets they have. They shoot at what they consider to be legitimate targets on their side, including civilian locations. On the other side, there are civilians hit and what they claim to be civilian targets attempted to be hit by the Israeli defense forces. That's why they shoot at civilian locations. They know that there are no civilians over there at this point of time. They realize that, but these are the targets available. Israel is trying to make sure that we don't provide his bala with better targets. And the military in these locations is very well protected. Military analysts have spoken in the last couple of weeks, or I should now say months of the ground offensive in Gaza, saying that the IDF wants to do what it can in the Gaza Strip in terms of dismantling Hamas and its Terry infrastructure before dealing with the North. Because in the words of the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and others, what was will not be in the sense that there will not be another war with Hamas because it will be completely eliminated. But what if Chesbolo beats them to the punch and launches more of a full-scale war as opposed to just skirmishes along the border? Is the IDF prepared? Yes, the IDF is maintaining preparedness for such an eventuality all the time. We have to remember that we use very little of our air force in the Gaza Strip and most of the air force is kept for the eventuality of a breakout in the North. And of course we can also switch some of the ground forces to the North if necessary. Right now we prefer to focus on the South. That's where we were attacked from with this 7th of October barbaric attack. And we have to make sure that we take care of Hamas and finish the job over there. And this is going to take quite a while. You just have shown that we are moving now to the areas that we have not yet dealt with in the Gaza Strip, mainly the so-called refugee camps in the center of Gaza Strip, the Borej and the Nusairat, the Muazi. And we have to finish that before we focus on the North. We also have to see what is going to be done about Trafakh. And that's another center that we have to deal with before we move to the North. Once we move to the North, we believe that based on the achievements we are going to have in Gaza, we are going to be able to convince Hezbollah to move farther North from the Tani River and make sure that the civilians in the North are not in Hamas' way when they move back into the villages. And if this is going to be the case, then by winning the war in Gaza, we should also create a better condition in the North. If not, we are going to have enough forces in order to deal with Hezbollah in the North militarily. Now over the border from Lebanon to Syria, obviously as per IDF policy, it will not comment on specific strikes within Syrian territory. But according to Syrian media, there were alleged strikes in Damascus that took out Brigadier General Razim Husavi, a top IRGC commander. Iran threatening Israel directly, although at the moment it's using its proxies, including that of Hamas, which has close ties and affiliates to the Iranian regime. How serious should Israel be taking the threats from Hamas and exactly who was Brigadier General Razim Husavi that he needed to be eliminated? Well, according to the news, Brigadier General Husavi was responsible for supplying Hezbollah with Iranian arms. And this is in charge of an effort that has been going on for a long time, many, many years, in which on the one hand Iran was sending arms, advanced arms to Hezbollah. Israel was trying to hit them on the road to Lebanon while they were crossing in Syria. So he's probably in charge of this operation for many years and was, according to the news, eliminated simply because of that. But we have to remember that we are at a time when the Iranian involvement in orchestrating this entire effort to hit Israel and Israeli interests is as it speaks. We see the Houthis and the Thals. We see the attack on a ship that allegedly was somehow connected to Israel near India. These are things that happened with direct Iranian involvement. We have witnesses that speak about involvement of the Iranians in directing the Houthis attacks in Yemen from Yemen. And we have information that connects the Iranians directly to the attack on their ship next to near India. So as the Iranians raise their level of involvement, direct involvement in the proxy war against Israel, then some of the results can be with hitting Iranian targets in Syria. Reserve Brigadier General, stay with us because I do want to get your analysis on another topic. And Palestinian media has also reported heavy clashes with Israeli forces in the West Bank overnight. The areas targeted were Nablus, Jericho, Ramallah and Bethlehem. The latest escalation follows an IDF arrest raid yesterday morning being Monday in the Janine refugee camp in the northern part of the West Bank. The West Bank has seen surging violence and arrests in parallel to Israel's war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The Israeli military saying that it is dismantling Hamas terrorists and affiliates in the West Bank as well. Some polls show that most Palestinians in the region support Hamas' October 7th attack on Israel, despite the death in Gaza and do not believe that the group committed atrocities. In fact, support for Hamas today in the West Bank stands at 44% compared to 12% just three months ago. Still with me from Roshan in Central Israel's Reserve Brigadier General Yosef Koupervasa. Yosef, these figures are astonishing. I mean that rise going from 12% to 44% in the West Bank. At the moment we're talking about the fight on the southern and the northern flanks of the country. But the West Bank, the east of the country has the potential to blow up and be pretty explosive in itself. Yes, definitely. It's amazing to see how wide is the support for Hamas inside the areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority. The Palestinian Authority is so corrupt and so weak that it doesn't get any support from its own constituencies. That's a very disturbing situation. Hamas is gaining popularity because of what they did on the 7th of October. This is the lesson learned that if you carry out horrific terror attacks against Israel, you are becoming more popular in the Palestinian street. That's what we're seeing and that brings back the potential of explosion in the West Bank as well. The Israel is aware of this and that's why we are carrying out so many arrests throughout the West Bank day in, day out, or actually night in, night out. That's what's happening. We have arrested already about 2,500 terror activists out of them. About 1,200 Hamas terrorists in the last two and a half months. And that tells you how widespread is the support of, is the presence of terrorists inside, inside the areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority. And I think that brings us back to what Prime Minister Netanyahu repeatedly says, that we cannot afford bringing the Palestinian Authority to the Gaza Strip after we finished the war in Gaza because the Palestinian Authority, first of all, is so weak and corrupt. And secondly, this is actually supporting the terror activities of Hamas and raises children, pupils in its territories to hate Israelis, to hate Jews and to carry out terror attacks against them. And the results we have seen in the attacks on October 7th. So it's a very dangerous situation. I hope that without ongoing activities to arrest those terrorists, we can prevent the outbreak of another terror wave from the West Bank. But it's going to take an ongoing effort in the future as well. Reserve Brigadier General Yosef Kupivase, the former Director General of Israel's Ministry of Strategic Affairs and the former head of the Research Division for IDF Military Intelligence. Thank you very much for both your time and your analysis here this morning. Thank you, Ruby. Now on the hostage front, the families of those kidnapped by Hamas gathered at the main gate of the Israeli Defense Ministry complex in Tel Aviv on Monday. Their aim was to wait for security cabinet ministers in the hope of stopping their vehicles and pleading with them for help for their loved ones. The protesters laid out our glasses, inferring time is running out for each of the hostages that are still in the terror group's captivity. We're standing here because the cabinet is gathering here to discuss a deal, a deal that's on the table and we're here to tell them that they have our back and that we trust them and believe them that they can make brave decisions and we expect them to do anything they can to bring back the hostages now. I don't know who is going to come but if it will be the Prime Minister, I will tell him that he is responsible to what happened in October 7th and he needs to fix it, he needs to bring them back as soon as possible because they don't have any time over there and the tunnels and their life are in danger and we hope that they will make a deal as soon as possible because we need to save them. We know that nothing is moving right now but we need someone to talk to us, we need someone to tell us what they're going to do, we need everyone to know that Romy and many more hostages are still held in Gaza and we want people to remember them and to not forget that they're there and they need to come home. On the other side of the country on Monday in Jerusalem, relatives of the hostages bird Prime Minister Benjamin Isanyahu as you spoke at the Knesset plenum after he declared that despite making every effort to bring kidnapped Israelis home doing so requires military pressure to succeed. Or with me here for more on this in studio is I 24 year senior editor Gaya Azrael, Gaya good morning to you, whether one loaths or doors in Isanyahu it's evident that not many people would want to be in his shoes right now, it's a very hard line to walk between choosing to secure the hostages versus making sure that the threat to millions of Israelis being Hamas is completely dismantled. That's exactly we did see those families in the plenum yesterday as Prime Minister Netanyahu was speaking they didn't boo but they did call out now this is what they've been calling for for all this time for a deal that would happen immediately as of course the time is ticking the clock is ticking 81 days now since these hostages have been taken by Hamas and we saw how so many of them have already lost their lives practically being murdered by Hamas in those tunnels in Gaza in captivity not being given medicine no been given any visits by the international Red Cross and therefore it's very clear the concern of those families we did hear another opinion from the opposition leader Yair Lapid saying we can kill Sinwa Yaxi Sinwa of course the head of Hamas in a month's time if we want to but now we need to focus on releasing those hostages the problem is that you need to to tango and Hamas is not giving his biggest card or his only card right now so easily Hamas's rocket threat on Israel has decreased significantly we've seen very scarce rocket fire in the past week or so Hamas knows this war will last for quite a few months now and is saving whatever rockets it still has and therefore those hostages are the insurance for the heads of Hamas this is not something they'll be giving away easily and just yesterday a report that Hamas and Islamic jihad have both refused the Egyptian proposal for a new hostage deal that would also include a wider vision of Egypt with regards to Gaza that would see the end of Hamas as the governing body in the Gaza Strip something that Hamas is not willing to accept and meanwhile the IDF continues its operation and the idea of Netanyahu and the military as well is that the military pressure will lead to release of more hostages obviously the previous deal would not have come into fruition without the military presence of Israel in the Gaza Strip and as Iroxinoir is still dug up in his tunnel also not really seeing what's happening in daylight not seeing the immense suffering of the people of Gaza that of course he does not care less about but also the devastation to the Hamas strongholds sticking to his gun literally not willing to release the hostages not willing to reach any sort of compromise at this hour so Israel does have to continue with this operation try to release these hostages or bring Hamas to a point where it agrees to some sort of a deal if there's no other word other than the almost sickening that human lives are being toyed with in this manner that as you mentioned appeared to be sort of a pawn in a game at the moment at least for Hamas but we knew as Israelis that this was going to be a long haul operation we had heard a time and time again not just in studio from military and strategic affairs analysts but also from a lot of the citizens knowing that we need to dismantle Hamas we need to get rid of the threat on the border so families can return home so that the country can start to heal where the concern lies is where the morale is sitting amongst the soldiers that are currently fighting in Gaza and we had the pleasure a few times to interview Iris Chaim which is the mother of your time who was unfortunately and accidentally killed by IDF soldiers operating in the Gaza Strip but she seems to understand that very well sending quite a morale boost to the soldiers absolutely incredible woman that we had here between me and you in studio and I'm a personal friend of Iris before this war even started I also visited her during the Shiva during the morning period for her son it was quite incredible to see the amount of Israelis that came to first pretty respects but beyond anything to gather some of the strength and the positivity the positive spirit that she brings she incredibly with great nobility said she has no anger for the soldiers who accidentally shot and killed her son in fact she sent them a message and eventually they did come to the Shiva they did come to meet her she hugged them she told them she wants to give them strength to continue with their mission an absolutely incredible woman what a great inspiration for the people of Israel and this is a great inspiration also for these soldiers obviously that need to go back despite the very tragic mistake that they've done in the battlefield killing those three hostages they say they did not identify them as hostages they did not see the white flag this is all still being investigated by military officials as to why the forces on the ground did not know that there's a possibility that hostages may be there they did not gather get the information about the SOS sign that was hanged on one of the buildings that will all be investigated but this woman iris haim just absolutely remarkable the message and the strength that she gives both to the Israeli soldiers and to the people of Israel sticking with the principles of unity of staying positive and giving everyone the strength to continue with with this justified war despite the tragedy that she endured she and her family absolutely and obviously this is not a war that Israel wanted we've heard numerous calls for a ceasefire but the world tends to forget that there was a ceasefire before October 7th there was no war across the border and obviously iris has come something of an epitome or a symbol of resilience in this country as you mentioned a pretty remarkable woman that is sending love and strength to the soldiers despite her own personal tragedies I 24 new senior editor guy Israel thank you so much for that just to recap we are on day 81 of war between Israel and Hamas overnight strikes hitting both northern central and even southern Gaza at the moment Israel continues on with its military campaign to eradicate Hamas and make sure that the threat no longer continues you are looking at live images of the border at the moment stay tuned though because at the top of the hour will bring you more updates with more analysis and experts opinions here in studio as well as around the country you're watching a special edition of I 24 news stay with us we'll be right back after the short break Israel is in a state of war families completely gunned 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 to be fought as well semana news 24 Israel bajo ataque news 24 en español trail analysis y la información de los acontecimientos de la guerra espadas de hierro entrevistas exclusivas reportes desde la zona de guerra la reacción de los países hispano parlantes news 24 el único medio en español que te mantiene informado y conectado con la comunidad latina en israel news 24 únicamente en I 24 welcome to the special edition on I 24 news about 11th or coming to life from our Tel Aviv studios thanks for joining me this hour it is day 81 of war between Israel and Hamas Palestinian media has reported a heavy IDF bombardment and deadly raids overnight in the central and southern parts of the Gaza Strip the continued fight incoming as the Israel defense forces continues to push on with its ground offensive to dismantle Hamas and the threat at the poses on the Jewish state on Tuesday morning the Israeli military announced the deaths of two more soldiers killed in the fighting bringing the IDF's death toll since the start of its ground incursion to 158 meanwhile Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has laid out three prerequisites for peace in an op-ed recently published in the Wall Street Journal they are to destroy Hamas demilitarized Gaza and he radicalized the whole of Palestinian society well to start with our broadcast let's cross to our correspondent pia klosher low is standing by for us in the south of the country more specifically the Israel Gaza border pia yesterday being Monday when we spoke there almost seemed to be a lull overnight before rocket alert sirens went off around 16 hours afterward what's the story today being Tuesday there were rocket alerts at 11 17 a.m. local time to be precise there was the last rocket alert on nacha laws which is in this direction and just 10 minutes earlier there was also a rocket alert on the city of sderot facing the northern sector of the Gaza border after a 10-day lull on that city of 30,000 inhabitant which has been evacuated for most of its residents right and pia this morning the horrific news of another two soldiers that were killed in combat in the Gaza Strip the overall consensus is that while the numbers are gut wrenching that keeps growing that given the guerrilla warfare in the Gaza Strip in particular with Hamas at the moment that this number is still kept relatively low I think yes it's relatively low you wouldn't say that to the families of those soldiers who died the soldiers who died and and for others were severely injured give an indication of the kind of warfare that's going on in the southern and northern sector of the Gaza Strip one of the soldiers was a tanker and he was killed in a clash that means that you have Hamas terrorists popping up of tunnel shafts for instance or from the rubbles of a building and shooting at close range of at soldiers another three others were severely wounded by mortar fire another one was killed with a rocket proper rocket proper grenade on on his tank another one a soldier was killed in a northern Gaza Strip the rest of them were in the southern front which shows that the southern front is heating up in comparison to the northern sector of the Gaza Strip where there's only one pocket of resistance by the Aldar Ash Tufa battalion of Hamas in the center of Gaza City but apart from that the thrust of the offensive is on the central refugee camps and on the city of Hanyunas I want to show you with Daniel Boko cameraman what's going on here in the sector which is just south of Gaza City in Shejaya al-Muraka and Jucho Redik which are three small towns south of Gaza City it's been wrapped in a cloud in a black cloud there's been intensive bombartments by the Israeli Air Force by the artillery and the navy on the three refugee camps in the central sector of the Gaza Strip al-Murazi, al-Burej and Nusrat especially on the axis leading in between those refugee camps belts of fire call it the the Palestinian media affiliated to Hamas because they're bombing areas very intensively in Hanyunas also belts of fire around the Nasser hospital hospitals are used by Hamas underneath the ground and above ground as operational command and control centers and as a result the Israeli army besieges besieges those hospitals and Nasser hospitals seem to be in Hanyunas one of those hospitals that the Israeli army wants eventually to take over. Correspondent Pierre Klushenberg giving us all the updates this morning on the Israel Gaza border will be crossing live to you a little later thank you for that and in Israel's north the idea of struck launch sites and other nearby areas in southern Lebanon after two projectiles were fired toward the northern Israeli community of Manara on Monday there were no reports of injuries from that attack as the border community has been largely evacuated meanwhile according to the semi-official Iranian news agency Tasnim a senior officer in Iran's Islamic revolutionary guard court was killed Monday in an alleged Israeli airstrike in the Syrian capital of Damascus the elimination of Brigadier General Razim al-Savi has prompted threats from Tehran with Iran's foreign minister warning that Tel Aviv faces a tough countdown and Iran's President Ibrahim Marisi vowing that Israel will certainly pay for this crime we'll join me now from Russia in central Israel is reserve Brigadier General Josef Kupovasa the former director general of Israel's ministry of strategic affairs and the former head of the research division for IDF military intelligence good morning to you and thank you so much for joining me here this morning morning good morning now the roads in northern Israel seem to still be closed as Israel Chisbollah clashes intensify is Israel progressing with Chisbollah is the terror group's retreats or at least threats at least temporary no I think that not much has changed on the northern front yet we cannot count it by the day and look at the changes just because one day there was less fire from from the north it's still an ongoing escalation ongoing tension that always there's a wolf being fought over there and the both sides are interested in making sure that he doesn't explode into and turn into a wide-scale war but in this context they carry out all kinds of activities that do have the potential of bringing an escalation a further escalation and it's very unstable the situation in the north as it as it looks right now now a lot of these communities have been largely evacuated similar to the south in the sense of hundreds of thousands of Israelis being moved toward the center of the country if that is the case what is the purpose of Chisbollah shooting over a lot of these drones and projectiles knowing that it's not hitting civilian populated areas well these are the targets they have they shoot at what they consider to be legitimate targets on their side including civilian locations when on the other side there are civilians hit and what they claim to be civilian targets attempted to to be hit by the Israeli defense forces that's why they shoot at civilian locations they know that there are no civilians over there at this point of time they realize that but these are the targets available Israel is trying to make sure that we don't provide Chisbollah with better targets and the military in this location is very well protected military analysts have spoken in the last couple of weeks or I should now say months of the ground offensive in Gaza saying that the IDF wants to do what it can in the Gaza Strip in terms of dismantling Hamas and its Terry infrastructure before dealing with the north because in the words of the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and others what was will not be in the sense that there will not be another war with Hamas because it will be completely eliminated but what if Chisbollah beats them to the punch and launches more of a full-scale war as opposed to just skirmishes along the border is the IDF prepared yes the IDF is maintaining preparedness for such an eventuality all the time we have to remember that we use very little of our air force in the in the high in the Gaza Strip and most of the air force is kept for the eventuality of breakout in the north and of course we can also switch some of the ground forces to the north if necessary right now we prefer to focus on the south that's where we were attacked from with this 7th of October barbaric attack and we have to make sure that we take care of Hamas and finish the job over there and this is going to take quite a while you just have shown that we are moving now to the areas that we have not yet dealt with in the Gaza Strip mainly the so-called refugee camps in the center of Gaza Strip the Borej and the Nusairat and the Muazi and we have to finish that before we focus on the north we also have to see what is going to be done about Rafa and that's another center that we have to deal with before we move to the north and once we move to the north we believe that based on the achievements we are going to have in Gaza and we are going to be able to convince Hezbollah to move farther north from the Ditani River and make sure that the citizens civilians in the north are not in harm's way when they move back into the villages and if this is going to be the case then by winning the war in Gaza we should also create a better condition in the north if not we are going to have enough forces in order to deal with Hezbollah in the north military Now over the border from Lebanon to Syria obviously as per IDF policy it will not comment on specific strikes within Syrian territory but according to Syrian media there were alleged strikes in Damascus that took out Brigadier General Razim Ossavi atop IRGC commander Iran threatening Israel directly although at the moment it's using its proxies including that of Hamas which has close ties and affiliates to the Iranian regime how serious should Israel be taking the threats from Hamas and exactly who was Brigadier General Razim Ossavi that he needed to be eliminated Well according to the news Brigadier General Ossavi was responsible for supplying Hezbollah with Iranian arms and this is in charge of an effort that has been going on for long time many many years in which on the one hand Iran was sending arms advanced arms to Hezbollah and Israel was trying to hit them on the road to Lebanon while they were crossing in Syria so he's probably in charge of this operation for many years and was according to the news eliminated simply because of that but we have to remember that we are at the time when the Iranian involvement in orchestrating this entire effort to hit Israel and Israeli interests is as it speaks we see the Houthis and the thousands we see the attack on and a ship that allegedly was somehow connected to Israel near India these are things that happened with direct Iranian involvement we have witnesses that speak about involvement of the Iranians in directing the Houthis attacks in Yemen from Yemen and we have information that connects the Iranians directly to the attack on their ship next to near India so as the Iranians raised their level of involvement of direct involvement in the proxy war against Israel then some of the results can be with hitting Iranian targets in Syria. Reserve Brigadier General stay with us because I do want to get your analysis on another topic. Palestinian media has also reported heavy clashes with Israeli forces in the West Bank overnight. The areas targeted were Nablus, Jericho, Ramallah and Bethlehem. The latest escalation follows an IDF arrest raid yesterday morning being Monday in the Janine refugee camp in the northern part of the West Bank. Now the West Bank has seen surging violence and arrests in parallel to Israel's war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The Israeli military saying that it is dismantling Hamas terrorists and affiliates in the West Bank as well. Recent polls show that most Palestinians in the region support Hamas's October 7th attack on Israel despite the death in Gaza and do not believe that the group committed atrocities. In fact support for Hamas today in the West Bank stands at 44% compared to 12% just three months ago. Still with me from Roshayen in Central Israel's reserve Brigadier General Yosef Koupervassar. Yosef these figures are astonishing. I mean that rise going from 12% to 44% in the West Bank. At the moment we're talking about the fight on the southern and the northern flanks of the country but the West Bank the east of the country has the potential to blow up and be pretty explosive in itself. Yes definitely it's amazing to see how wide is the support for Hamas inside the areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority. The Palestinian Authority is so corrupt and so weak that it doesn't get any support from its own constituencies. That's a very disturbing situation. Hamas is gaining popularity because of what they did on the 7th of October. This is the lesson land that if you carry out horrific terror attacks against Israel you are becoming more popular in the Palestinian street. That's what we're seeing and that brings back the potential of explosion in the West Bank as well. Israel is aware of this and that's why we are carrying out so many arrests throughout the West Bank day in day out or actually night in night out. And that's what's happening. We have arrested already about 2,500 terror activists out of them about 1,200 Hamas terrorists in the last two and a half months. And that tells you how widespread is the presence of terrorists inside the areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority. And I think that brings us back to what Prime Minister Netanyahu repeatedly says that we cannot afford bringing the Palestinian Authority to the Gaza Strip after we finish the war in Gaza because the Palestinian Authority first of all is so weak and corrupt. And secondly this is actually supporting the terror activities of Hamas and raises children that pupils in its territories to hate Israelis, to hate Jews and to carry out terror attacks against them. So then the results we have seen in the attacks on October 7th. So it's it's a very dangerous situation. I hope that with our ongoing activities to arrest those terrorists we can prevent the outbreak of another terror wave from the West Bank but it's going to take an ongoing effort in the future as well. Reserve Brigadier General Yosef Kouper-Vassar, the former Director General of Israel's Ministry of Strategic Affairs and the former head of the Research Division for IDF Military Intelligence. Thank you so very much for both your time and your analysis here this morning. Thank you. Now on the hostage front the families of those kidnapped by Hamas gathered at the main gate of the Israeli Defense Ministry complex in Tel Aviv on Monday. Their aim was to wait for security cabinet ministers in the hope of stopping their vehicles and pleading with them for help for their loved ones. The protesters laid out our glasses and fairing time is running out for each of the hostages that are still in the terror group's camp activity. We're standing here because the cabinet the cabinet is gathering here to discuss a deal the deal that's on the table and we're here to tell them that they have our back and that we trust them and believe them that they can make brave decisions and we expect them to do anything they can to bring back the hostages now. I don't know who is going to come but if it will be the Prime Minister I will tell them that he is responsible to what happened in October 7th and he needs to fix it he needed to bring them back as soon as possible because they don't have any time over there and the tunnels and their life are in danger and we hope that they will make a deal as soon as possible because we need to save them. We know that nothing is moving right now but we need someone to talk to us we need someone to tell us what they're going to do we need everyone to know that Romy and many more hostages are still held in Gaza and we want people to remember them and to not forget that they're there and they need to come home. On the other side of the country on Monday in Jerusalem relatives of the hostages bird Prime Minister Benjamin Isanyahu as you spoke at the Knesset plenum after he declared that despite making every effort to bring kidnapped Israelis home doing so requires military pressure to succeed. Or with me here for more on this in studio is I-24 new senior editor Gaya Israel guy good morning to you whether one loaths or doors Netanyahu it's evident that not many people would want to be in his shoes right now it's a very hard line to walk between choosing to secure the hostages versus making sure that the threat to millions of Israelis being Hamas is completely dismantled. Yes exactly we did see those families in the plenum yesterday as Prime Minister Netanyahu was speaking they didn't boo but they did call out now this is what they've been calling for for all this time for a deal that would happen immediately as of course the time is ticking the clock is ticking 81 days now since these hostages have been taken by Hamas and we saw how so many of them have already lost their lives practically being murdered by Hamas in those tunnels in Gaza in captivity not being given medicine now being given any visits by the international Red Cross and therefore it's very clear the concern of those families we did hear another opinion from the Opposition Leader Yair Lapid saying we can kill Sinwar Yahya Sinwar of course the head of Hamas in the most time if we want to but now we need to focus on releasing those hostages the problem is that you need to tango and Hamas is not giving his biggest card or his only card right now so easily Hamas's rocket threat on Israel has decreased significantly we've seen very scarce rocket fire in the past week or so Hamas knows this war will last for quite a few months now and is saving whatever rockets it still has and therefore those hostages are the insurance for the heads of Hamas this is not something they'll be giving away easily and just yesterday a report that Hamas and Islamic jihad have both refused the Egyptian proposal for a new hostage deal that would also include a wider vision of Egypt with regards to Gaza that would see the end of Hamas as the governing body in the Gaza Strip something that Hamas is not willing to accept and meanwhile the idea continues its operation and the idea of Netanyahu and the military as well is that the military pressure will lead to release of more hostages obviously the previous deal would not have come into fruition without the military presence of Israel in the Gaza Strip and as Iri Sinwar is still dug up in his tunnel also not really seeing what's happening in daylight not seeing the the immense suffering of the people of Gaza that of course he does not care less about but also the devastation to the Hamas strongholds sticking to his gun literally and not willing to release the hostages not willing to reach any sort of compromise at this hour so Israel does have to continue with this operation try to release these hostages or bring Hamas to a point where it agrees to some sort of a deal there's no other word other than the almost sickening that human lives are being toyed with in this manner that as you mentioned appear to be sort of a pawn in a game at the moment at least for Hamas but we knew as Israelis that this was going to be a long haul operation we had heard it time and time again not just in studio from military and strategic affairs analysts but also from a lot of the citizens knowing that we need to dismantle Hamas we need to get rid of the threats on the border so families can return home so that the country can start to heal where the concern lies is where the morale is sitting amongst the soldiers that are currently fighting in Gaza and we had the pleasure a few times to interview Iris Chaim which is the mother of Yotam who was unfortunately and accidentally killed by IDF soldiers operating in the Gaza Strip but she seems to understand that very well sending quite a morale boost to the soldiers absolutely incredible woman that we had here between me and you in studio and I'm a personal friend of Iris before this war even started I also visited her during the Shiva during the morning period for her son it was quite incredible to see the amount of Israelis that came to also first pay their respects but beyond anything to gather some of the strength and the positivity the positive spirit that she brings she incredibly with great nobility said she has no anger for the soldiers who accidentally shot and killed her son in fact she sent them a message and eventually they did come to the Shiva they did come to meet her she hugged them she told them she wants to give them strength to continue with their mission an absolutely incredible woman what a great inspiration for the people of Israel and this is a great inspiration also for these soldiers obviously that need to go back despite the very tragic mistake that they've done in the battlefield killing those three hostages they say they did not identify them as hostages they did not see the white flag this is all still being investigated by military officials as to why the forces on the ground did not know that there's a possibility that hostages may be there they did not gather get the information about the SOS sign that was hanged on one of the buildings that will all be investigated but this woman Iris Chaim just absolutely remarkable the message and the strength that she gives both to the Israeli soldiers and to the people of Israel sticking with the principles of unity of staying positive and giving everyone the strength to continue with this justified war despite the tragedy that she endured she and her family absolutely and obviously there's not a war that Israel wanted we've heard numerous calls for a ceasefire but the world tends to forget that there was a ceasefire before october 7th there was no war across the border and obviously iris has come something of an epitome or a symbol of resilience in this country as you mentioned a pretty remarkable woman that is sending love and strength to the soldiers despite her own personal tragedies i-24 new senior editor Gai Israel thank you so much for that just to recap we are on day 81 of war between Israel and Hamas overnight strikes hitting both northern central and even southern Gaza at the moment Israel continues on with its military campaign to eradicate Hamas and make sure that the threat no longer continues you are looking at live images of the border at the moment stay tuned though because at the top of the hour we'll bring you more updates with more analysis and expert opinions here in studio as well as around the country you're watching a special edition of i-24 news stay with us we'll be right back after the short break selection a recarga and digital numero el que deseas colocarle la recarga además ellos reciben el doble de balance en recarga de 8 dólares o más altis la red global de los dominicanos 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 to be fought as well we'll come through the special edition on i-24 news i'm batch 11th all coming to live from our television studios thanks for joining me this hour it is day 81 of war between israel and Hamas palestine in media has reported a heavy idea of bombardment and deadly raids overnight in the central and southern parts of the Gaza strip they continued fighting coming as the israel defense forces continues to push on with its ground offensive to dismantle Hamas and the threat it poses on the jewish state on tuesday morning the israeli military announced the deaths of two more soldiers killed in the fighting bringing the idea of the death toll since the start of the ground incursion to 158 meanwhile israeli prime minister benjamin itzanyahu has laid out three prerequisites for peace in an op-ed recently published in the wall street journal they are to destroy Hamas demilitarized gaza and he radicalized the whole of palestine in society palestine media has also reported heavy clashes with israeli forces in the west bank overnight on the areas targeted were nablus jerico ramallah and Bethlehem the latest escalation follows an idf arrest raid yesterday morning being monday in the janine refugee camp in the northern west bank now the west bank has seen surging violence and arrests in parallel to israel's war on Hamas in the Gaza strip the israeli military saying it is dismantling Hamas terrorists and affiliates in the west bank as well recent polls show that most palestinians in the region support Hamas's october 7 attack on israel despite the death toll in Gaza and do not believe the group committed atrocities in fact support for Hamas today in the west bank stands at 44 percent compared to just 12 percent three months ago and joining me right here in studio this morning is rafael urashalmi a former senior idf intelligence officer and the host of our prime time show the rundown caliph ben david general and good morning to you caliph the wall street journal piece notably as we've spoken about in the past did not include the fact that 129 hostages are still being held captive by Hamas it almost appears that the premier has changed his rhetoric a little well look to be fair that piece really dealt with more than what we call the day after presumably after Hamas is defeated and after the hostages released however certainly somebody in the prime minister's office had to suggest that perhaps we should have one mention saying after the hostages released it would be noted that there would and that is what at least at the very least on the rhetoric of the prime minister being a little tone deaf when it comes to the hostages i did note that in this kineset speech the prime minister was at pains to try to paint the picture of doing everything he can he even spoke of talking to Xi Jinping or sending a message to the chinese leader Xi Jinping in order to get no argamani out of captivity because her mother has chinese roots but yes there is beyond the rhetoric though there is this question the prime minister the war cabinet is facing some decisions now about weighing the operation in Gaza hamas demanding a full end to it which is and which is a non-starter but at least probably was going to be have to be an extensive ceasefire against another hostage deal and these are very difficult considerations it does seem as if the prime minister is putting more priority on the the the goal of defeating Hamas while still saying it is remains one of the the other key goal is freeing the hostages and i fell the column also avoided mentioning anything of a palestinian state or at least a two-state solution and in today's current climate it's hard to imagine that israelis throughout the political spectrum are even interested in engaging in a talk like that when there isn't a viable partner for peace yes and anyway it's much too early to consider this alternative right now what should be done and immediately is to speak of the day after but not who is going to rule eventually finally the gaza street or the palestinian territories more how do we re establish law on order and start rebuilding gaza and giving the gaza people their lives back so i think this should be starting now we should also involve much more the international community i mean we're doing our utmost to show our goodwill in helping in a humanitarian way the population we should involve much more the international community starting with the egyptians continuing with the arabic countries europe the united states everybody should be involved even physically with a presence maybe already of some blue helmets in some areas i'm not exaggerating i'm saying this because we should make the hamas rule completely irrelevant by now the military operation will take a long long time this doesn't mean that we cannot suppress the political power of hamas in gaza the hamas has lost gaza but he's still having a hold on rafiyah and hanunas and we should make them completely utterly irrelevant by offering already the beginning of the day after now the day after he's starting now because we have won the war the fact that he's going to take weeks or months to clean up the gaza strip it's one thing but we have won the war the objective is that the ramas is not to the in control militarily of the gaza strip but he's still somehow a little in control politically and also of some pockets of resistance that are very important strategically which is rafiyah and the philadelphia road there's no doubt that there has been a hit to at least the military campaign from the the gaza side with regards to hamas but it hasn't completely got rid of their capabilities to still launch rockets at the state of israel kalev just a few days ago you posted security footage just outside our studios of where a rocket landed presumably sent over the border from gaza toward tel aviv that was not struck down by the iron dome well let's keep in mind but you that even now in northern gaza even though the idea has control over the above surface say area of northern gaza there are still tunnels the idea of just releasing footage yesterday of yet another tunnel that they found we did see fighting in north gaza even on our broadcast you could see the going on there so even with even within northern gaza there is still the capability through i guess tunnels they could always come out shoot a rocket go back in the idea has to clean that up and yes in southern gaza in the southern half for most of that area is still totally controlled by hamas as rafiyah said the strategy seems to be more to encircle that area of southern gaza of khan units and say move into the rafiyah here in the philadelphia corner but that will still leave a considerable amount of various southern gaza for the hamas to operate even from the so-called safe zones that israel has set up and we know that hamas has uh uh five rockets from those safe zones a gentleman stay with me i do want to get an update from the south of israel so let's cross to our correspondent pier clash and learn who is standing by for us on the israel gaza border pier what's the situation there this morning it still is early but are there any signs of rocket alerts warnings going off no the last rocket alert was at 17 a.m local time on nacha laws which is just north of where we are and early around maybe 10 minutes earlier there was a rocket fire on sderot a city of 30 000 inhabitants which has been most largely evacuated uh no damage no casualties sderot had the lull of 10 days in rocket fire which is something quite unusual up here the death toll unfortunately with regards to the close combat of which the idea of soldiers are fighting in in the gaza strip has gone up by another two bringing the total to 158 what do we know about the two that the idea revealed yesterday being monday i believe one of them is left behind a pregnant wife we know that's one of the soldiers was killed in the southern sector of the gaza strip uh he was killed in a clash uh which gives you an indication of the kind of warfare that the idea is conducting against ramas terrorists the many of the terrorists are operating guerrilla mode coming out of peers in in coming out of tunnel shafts in very small squads of two to three to five people and clashing at close range with the israeli army the other soldier was killed in the northern gaza strip it seems by a rocket propelled grenade an rpg anti-tank missile and i want to show you the northern gaza strip because you just spoke about it earlier and there are heavy fighting just inside gaza city in two neighborhoods that haven't been taken over by the idf the aldar agent to fah neighborhood where you can see maybe some smoke billowing there is a whole division of the israeli army fighting a chamaz battalion there and uh there are fierce fighting inside and it could take days or even weeks for these these two neighborhoods to uh fall under the idf and that would complete the total in the total control of gaza city by the idf now the tactical way the army is conducting its warfare in the northern gaza strip is striking strikingly very different from the tactics employed in the southern sector of the gaza strip because in the northern sector basically the army took over one neighborhood or one village or one little town after the other they bite they chew and they digest and that's the way they operated very methodically regarding the southern sector especially the city of hanyunas a city of 200 000 inhabitants prior to the war the there was a swarm of idf ground troops which came into the city in the heart of the city and encircled the city at the same time there are five divisions a five regimen brigade sorry fighting in hanyunas with a lot of forces and as a result the israeli air force for instance is very reluctant to bomb uh targets because of the proximity and the number of ground forces in the area now what's happening is at night when the idf is less operating on the ground the air force is striking at command center control centers uh tunnel shafts etc etc terror infrastructure but they do that at night and overnight there was according to the idf 100 such strikes on presumed terror targets uh in hanyunas and in the vicinity of hanyunas also further south in raffa which shows you the intensity of the bombing at night 100 strike on a very small area which is probably something like 90 square kilometers corresponding pier clash and they're giving us all the latest updates from the israeli gaza border at this hour thank you for that now onto several other fronts of this war a possible maritime attack close to the coast of yemen is being investigated this tuesday morning this according to the united kingdom maritime trade operations agency the body says it received a report about an incident approximately 50 nautical miles west of the city of al-khodaida in yemen earlier in the morning no further details have yet been provided now yemen's hootie rebels backed by rand however have carried out numerous missile and drone attacks on vessels sailing through the key renzi shipping lane in recent weeks causing a massive disturbance to global shipping and in israel's north the idf struck launch sites and other nearby areas in southern lebanon after two projectiles were fired toward the northern israeli community of minara on monday there were no reports of injuries from that attack as the border community has largely been evacuated meanwhile according to the semi-official iranian news agency taznim a senior officer in iran's islamic revolutionary guard call was killed monday in an alleged israeli airstrike in the syrian capital of demascus the elimination of brigadier general razi mousavi has prompted threats from tehran with iran's foreign minister warning that televiv faces a tough countdown and iran's president ibraham rizy vowing that israel will certainly pay for this crime and still with me in studio rafael urushalmi and kalev ben david rafael what is happening with the us-led coalition that was supposed to be taking out these threats are they actually combating the hootie threats because every day it tends to be reported by some maritime body in the area that more threats are coming toward the red sea nobody is doing the job first of all the americans and their so-called international coalition speaking of 20 countries there is a force that was created in april 2022 of 39 countries that was supposed to deal with this problem of the security in the red sea now you have only 20 out of the 39 and when you say 20 i'll give you one example australia has sent six soldiers that's its participation why aren't they not doing the job because they are not attacking the hooties they're just patrolling and on a defensive mode whereas it's utopian about the biggest military power in the world facing a group of mercenaries paid by tehran and still they operate freely other countries around are also not interesting apparently to protect their own interests but starting with Saudi arabia followed by egypt who is losing a lot of money because their ships do not go through the sewers kelan anymore or even eritrea who has also invested interest in the red sea opposite yemen the eritreans have have complained in the media the ones who are the most outspoken about the problem so it's uh really regretful and a little ridiculous uh to see that these hooties can actually threaten the world economy and your wallet and my wallet in the long term uh without anything happening to them well caleva i want to touch on that economic perspective because no doubt if some of these missiles or drones or projectiles manage to reach the southern most city of israel being a light we know what the civilian casualties will be but what about the economic casualties although this only counts for and correct me if i'm wrong i think 30 percent of all israeli imports it's around 15 to 20 percent of global shipping right most of the imports that go through a lot actually um are it's exporting a potash from the from israel's uh dead sea also watermobiles most of the watermobiles from asia anybody who goes down to the allot port can see that uh so i think it'll be able to sustain economically but to build on what rafael is saying look at some of the countries adding to that china which is uses the red sea in the sues canal as a major shipping lane and you know you would expect china perhaps could exert pressure for example on the iranians to deal with this situation and they're not and also take a look what happened here yesterday i seen a figure in the irgc is killed in uh demascus alleged to be an israeli a strike where do we see iran's proxies retaliating the hooties maybe this attack we may discuss it there were his attacks on american forces based in iraq by another his uh by another iranian proxy called hasbala hatib which is another ashiite uh militia there the iranians seem to feel that the americans are unwilling to come they're the kind of weak underbelly here in the region they're willing to attack them and really not face consequences there was an article in the washington post i think it was a couple of weeks ago saying there are some members in the u.s defense apartment that are getting a patient with the body of the administration saying we can't we have to respond strongly to these iranian proxy attacks or even send a message a stronger message to aran itself that this isn't acceptable speaking of one of the biggest iranian proxies hasbala what is actually happening with regards to the skirmishes that are breaking out in the north at the moment as of today being tuesday roads do appear closed but the civilian population has largely been evacuated and knowing that why would hadsbala continue to target some of the open area at least in the north is the threat actually being dealt with or is it's sort of like you shoot your rockets at empty areas it's not harming anyone will just let you keep the status quo we have met some progress in the north there is a kind of redeployment of the radwan force and some of the isbala troops going a bit further away from the border with israel but a lot of them remain you have to remember that a lot of them live there they are from south lebanon with their families they just don't want to evacuate so it's taking a while it's taking a little too long we know that the main hold is the again the american pressure we asked now for extra apache helicopters so far the Biden administration is not willing to give these extra helicopters and the main reason is because they're afraid we're going to use them to attack isbala because we don't have enough to to do both south and north with what apaches we have we have sent a strong message I think today to the Biden administration by stating very clearly that Iran is behind everything here and we suppressed an Iranian general do just to prove our point it's true that it was an opportunity that you could miss this was a guy we were targeting for a while we missed him twice in the past so this time we got him but it's also a very strong message like we're like we're not kidding here we know who's being on all this and we know that it is really silly politically and geostrategically to make a difference between Hamas is balaa who it is it's all just one front there is no multi-front it's only one front and we have to confront it unfortunately we're held back it's also possible and I'll finish with that that we want to wait the best time for us to operate it might not be right now that we want to attack is balaa we are preparing this attack anyhow we're ready for it we're just probably waiting for the best time militarily and politically to do it now let's keep in mind in bacha that uh even with the civilians evacuated over the past two and a half months we've got 12 people have been killed uh in the north eight soldiers four civilians in any other period if over a two and a half month period you had had that many people killed by his bala five north this would have made a a general war on his bala but circumstances are not permitting it at this time absolutely I want to thank both klevbin david rafael you're show me thank you both gentlemen for your expert analysis at the sour and on to a different front the families of those kidnapped by kamas gathered at the main gate of the israeli defense ministry complex in telavev on monday they aim us to wait for security cabinet ministers in the hope of stopping their vehicles and pleading with them for help for their loved ones the protesters laid out our glasses in faring time is running out for each of the hostages still in the terror groups captivity we're standing here because the cabinet the cabinet is gathering here to discuss a deal the deal that's on the table and we're here to tell them that they have our back and that we trust them and believe them that they can make brave decisions and we expect them to do anything they can to bring back the hostages now i don't know who is going to come but if it will be the prime minister i will tell him that he is responsible to what happened in october 7 and he needs to fix it they needed to bring them back as soon as possible because they don't have any time over there and the tunnels and their life are in danger and we hope that they will make a deal as soon as possible because we need to save them we know that nothing is moving right now but we need someone to talk to us we need someone to tell us what they're going to do we need everyone to know that rome and and many more hostages are still held in gaza and we want people to remember them and to not forget that they're there and they need to come home well with me now in studio is ofir khanan the project manager and international spokesperson for israel is in geo thank you so much for coming into the studio this morning the NGO was founded in 2017 and it tends to broaden the lens of how israel is viewed and perceived why tell us a little bit about the organization yeah so we were established in 2017 because we realized that the power of youth is something that we have to harness and really take advantage of in the international arena especially since a lot of israelis travel abroad after their army service we really wanted to make sure that we know how to give them the right tools to advocate for israel and and our narrative while abroad and that's how it all started but now obviously we've reallocated all of our efforts and resources towards helping the hostages families and sharing the israeli narrative in terms of the war abroad right and also recently you have shifted to collecting some of the testimonies from the survivors just how difficult is it with so much of the criticism abroad with these testimonies that the rapes didn't occur that the atrocities in which they experienced didn't happen how do you combat the hate yeah it's definitely heartbreaking and and very difficult to witness and that's kind of why i i started working with the families on october 7th really from day one we realized that the best way to try and combat the situation is just by humanizing the stories of the families i mean why is taking people hostage something that is a matter of public debate it shouldn't be it's a global humanitarian issue and that's what we're trying to project to the world and that's what we want the world to help support us and that's what we've been doing just humanizing them it's a it's a very hard but very bold undertaking absolutely and especially because israel's public relations tends to take such a hit during times of conflict and war in particular is this why NGOs such as yours are trying to get involved in the fight of making sure that israel's image perceived abroad shifts from the the usual anti-semitic and anti-zionist rhetoric to something a bit more positive yes definitely there have been a lot of NGOs and initiatives mostly from the civilian front that have been founded either as a result of october 7th or like israel is that have been here for a while that truly as you said are trying to show the israel israeli narrative for what it is which is a complex but full of life narrative so we're really i believe that the best way to combat the situation is again just by showing the people showing the hope that we have for returning the hostages and really trying to generate as much international support towards the humanitarian issues rather than you know the geopolitical complexities of the region which as we know far exceed my capabilities to advocate for because it's so complicated we really just want to make sure that people understand that our nation here has been hurt we have people that have been taken hostage civilians and that's what we're trying to advocate for as you mentioned really bringing the the human aspect the most basic aspect to a lot of their stories you were able on a dime to switch very quickly to relocating your your resources and what you guys were doing abroad to assisting the hostages and the families where do you see the organization going next i think we have to do everything in our power to keep showing these stories to keep having people to people conversations and advocating for the return of the hostages through storytelling another project that we've initiated is a VR virtual reality project in which we're going to take testimonies of people who have survived or have had family members taken hostage and we're going to showcase this to campuses abroad particularly for university students and i think that's also one way in which we can try and really showcase what happened here and just bring it to people's attention get the international press international world to advocate for our cause and help bring these people home well we at i24news have the esteemed honor of being able to provide you with a platform to be able to do that of your khanan thank you so very much for joining me this morning and that brings us to a wrap of this special edition covering the 81st day of the war between israel and hummus well is in a state of war families completely done down in their beds we have no idea where is she as our soldiers are fighting on the front line but the general perception is something that certainly needs to to be fought as well welcome to the special edition on i24news i'm batch 11th all coming july from our television studios thanks for joining me this hour it is day 81 of war between israel and hummus palestinian media has reported a heavy idf bombardment and deadly raids overnight in the central and southern parts of the gaza strip the continued fighting coming as the israel defense forces continues to push on with its ground offensive to dismantle hummus and the threatened poses on the jewish state on tuesday morning the israeli military announced the deaths of two more soldiers killed in the fighting bringing the idea of the death toll since the start of the ground incursion to 158 meanwhile israeli prime minister benjamin itinerary has laid out three prerequisites for peace in an op-ed recently published in the wall street journal they are to destroy hummus demilitarized gaza and he radicalized the whole of palestinian society palestinian media has also reported heavy clashes with israeli forces in the west bank overnight on the areas targeted were nablus jericho remalla and bethlehem the latest escalation follows an idf arrest raid yesterday morning being monday in the janine refugee camp in the northern west bank now the west bank has seen surging violence and arrests in parallel to israel's war on hummus in the gaza strip the israeli military saying it is dismantling hummus terrorists and affiliates in the west bank as well recent polls show that most palestinians in the region support hummus's october 7th attack on israel despite the death toll in gaza and do not believe the group committed atrocities in fact support for hummus today in the west bank stands at 44 compared to just 12 three months ago and joining me right here in studio this morning is rafael urashalmi a former senior idf intelligence officer and the host of our prime time show the rundown kelev ben david general and good morning to you kelev the wall street journal piece notably as we've spoken about in the past did not include the fact that 129 hostages are still being held captive by hamats it almost appears that the premier has changed his rhetoric a little well look to be fair that piece really dealt with more than what we call the day after presumably after hamas is defeated and after the hostages released however certainly somebody in the prime minister's office had to suggest that perhaps we should have one mention in saying after the hostages released it would be noted that there would and that is what at least at the very least on the rhetoric of the prime minister being a little tone deaf when it comes to the hostages i did note that in this kineset speech the prime minister was at pains to try to paint the picture of doing everything he can he even spoke of talking to jizhi or sending a message to the chinese leader shijin ping in order to get no argamani out of captivity because her mother has chinese roots but yes there is beyond the rhetoric though there is this question the prime minister the war cabinet is facing some decisions now about weighing the operation in gaza hamas demanding a full end to it which is which is which is a non-starter but at least probably was going to be have to be an extensive ceasefire against another hostage deal and these are very difficult considerations it does seem as if the prime minister is putting more priority on the the the goal of defeating hamas while still saying it is remains one of the the other key goal is freeing the hostages now afail the column also avoided mentioning anything of a palestinian state or at least a two-state solution and in today's current climate it's hard to imagine that israelis throughout the political spectrum are even interested in engaging in a talk like that when there isn't a viable partner for peace yes and anyway it's much too early to consider this alternative right now what should be done and immediately is to speak of the day after but not who is going to rule eventually finally the gaza street or the palestinian territories more how do we re establish law on order and start rebuilding gaza and giving the gaza people their lives back so i think this should be starting now we should also involve much more the international community i mean we're doing our utmost to show our goodwill in helping in a humanitarian way the population we should involve much more the international community starting with the egyptians continuing with the arabic countries europe the united states everybody should be involved even physically with a presence maybe already of some blue helmets in some areas i'm not exaggerating i'm saying this because we should make the hamas rule completely irrelevant by now the military uh operation will take a long long time this doesn't mean that we cannot suppress the political power of hamas in gaza the hamas has lost gaza but he's still having a hold on rafiyah and hanyunists and we should make them completely utterly irrelevant by offering already the beginning of the day after now the day after he's starting now because we have won the war the fact that he's going to take weeks or months to clean up the gaza strip it's one thing but we have won the war the objective is that the ramas is not today in control militarily of the gaza strip but he's still somehow a little in control politically and also of some pockets of resistance that are very important strategically which is rafiyah and the philadelphia road there's no doubt that there has been a hit to at least the military campaign from the the gaza side with regards to hamas but it hasn't completely got rid of their capabilities to still launch rockets at the state of israel caliph just a few days ago you posted security footage just outside our studios of where a rocket landed presumably sent over the border from gaza toward tel aviv that was not struck down by the iron dawn well let's keep in mind about you that even now in northern gaza even though the idea has control over the above surface say area of northern gaza there are still tunnels the idea of just releasing footage yesterday of yet another tunnel that they found we did see fighting in north gaza even on our broadcast you could see the going on there so even with even within northern gaza there is still the capability through i guess the tunnels they could always come out shoot a rocket go back in the idea has to clean that up and yes in southern gaza in the southern half most of that area is still totally controlled by hamas as rafiyah said the strategy seems to be more to encircle that area of southern gaza of khan units and say move into the rafiyah here in the philadelphia corner but that will still leave a considerable amount of various southern gaza for the hamas to operate even from the so-called safe zones that israel has set up and we know that hamas has uh fired rockets from those safe zones a gentleman stay with me i do want to get an update from the south of israel so let's cross to our correspondent pier clash and learn who is standing by for us on the israel gaza border pier what's the situation there this morning it still is early but are there any signs of rocket alerts warnings going off no the last rocket alert was at 117 a.m local time on nacha laws which is just north of where we are and early around maybe 10 minutes earlier there was a rocket fire on sderot a city of 30 000 inhabitants which has been most largely evacuated no damage no casualties sderot had a lot of 10 days in rocket fire which is something quite unusual up here the death toll unfortunately with regards to the close combat of which the id of soldiers are fighting in in the gaza strip has gone up by another two bringing the total to 158 what do we know about the two that the idf revealed yesterday being monday i believe one of them is left behind a pregnant wife we know that one of the soldiers was killed in the southern sector of the gaza strip he was killed in a clash which gives you an indication of the kind of warfare that the idf is conducting against hamas terrorists the many of the terrorists are operating guerrilla mode coming out of peers in coming out of tunnel shafts in very small squads of two to three to five people and clashing at close range with the israeli army the other soldier who was killed in the northern gaza strip it seems by a rocket propel grenade an rpg anti-tank missile and i want to show you the northern gaza strip because you just spoke about it earlier and there are heavy fighting just inside gaza city in two neighborhoods that haven't been taken over by the idf the aldar agent to far neighborhood where you can see maybe some smoke billowing uh there is a whole division of the israeli army fighting a hamas battalion there and uh there are fierce fighting inside and it could take days or even weeks for these these two neighborhoods to fall under the idf and that would complete the total in the total control of gaza city by the idf now the tactical way the army is conducting its warfare in the northern gaza strip is striking strikingly very different from the tactics employed in the southern sector of the gaza strip because in the northern sector basically the army took over one neighborhood or one village or one little town after the other they bite they chew and they digest and that's the way they operated very methodically regarding the southern sector especially the city of hanunas a city of 200 000 inhabitants prior to the war the there was a swarm of idf ground troops which came into the city in the heart of the city and encircled the city at the same time there are five divisions a five regime brigade sorry fighting in hanunas with a lot of forces and as a result the israeli air force for instance is very reluctant to bomb targets because of the proximity and the number of ground forces in the area now what's happening is at night when the idf is less operating on the ground the air force is striking at command center control centers tunnel shafts etc etc terror infrastructure but they do that at night and overnight there was according to the idf 100 such strikes on presumed terror targets in hanunas and in the vicinity of hanunas also further south in raffa which shows you the intensity of the bombing at night 100 strike on a very small area which is probably something like 90 square kilometers corresponding pier clash and they're giving us all the latest updates from the israel gaza border at the south i thank you for that now on to several other fronts of this war a possible maritime attack close to the coast of yemen is being investigated this tuesday morning this according to the united kingdom maritime trade operations agency the body says it receives a report about an incident approximately 50 nautical miles west of the city of al-khudaida in yemen earlier in the morning no further details have yet been provided now yemen city rebels back by rand however have carried out numerous missile and drone attacks on vessels sailing through the key renzi shipping lane in recent weeks causing a massive disturbance to global shipping and in israel's north the idf struck launch sites and other nearby areas in southern lebanon after two projectiles were fired toward the northern israeli community of minara on monday there were no reports of injuries from that attack as the border community has largely been evacuated meanwhile according to the semi-official iranian news agency taznim a senior officer in iran's islamic revolutionary guard call was killed monday in an alleged israeli airstrike in the syrian capital of demascus the elimination of brigadier general razi musavi has prompted threats from tehran with iran's foreign minister warning that televiv faces a tough countdown and iran's president ebra marisi vowing that israel will certainly pay for this crime and still with me in studio rafael urushalmi and kalev ben david rafael what is happening with the us-led coalition that was supposed to be taking out these threats are they actually combating the hootie threats because every day it tends to be reported by some maritime body in the area that more threats are coming toward the red sea nobody is doing the job first of all the americans and their so-called international coalition speaking of 20 countries there is a force that was created in april 2022 of 39 countries that was supposed to deal with this problem of the security in the red sea now you have only 20 out of the 39 and when you say 20 i give you one example australia has sent six soldiers that's its participation why aren't they not doing the job because they are not attacking the hooties they're just patrolling and on a defensive mode whereas it's utopian about the biggest military power in the world facing a group of mercenaries paid by tehran and still they operate freely other countries around are also not interesting apparently to protect their own interests but starting with Saudi arabia followed by egypt who is losing a lot of money because their ships do not go through the sewers canal anymore or even eritrea who has also invested interest in the red sea opposite yemen the eritreans have have complained them the media the ones who are the most outspoken about the problem so it's a really regretful and a little ridiculous to see that these hooties can actually threaten the world economy and your wallet and my wallet in the long term without anything happening to them well kelev i want to touch on that economic perspective because no doubt if some of these missiles or drones or projectiles managed to reach the southern most city of israel being a light we know what the civilian casualties will be but what about the economic casualties although there's only council and correct me if i'm wrong i think 30 percent of all israeli imports it's around 15 to 20 percent of global shipping right most of the imports that go through a lot actually um or it's exporting a potash from the from israel's dead sea also automobiles most of the automobiles from asia anybody who goes down to the allot port can see that uh so i think it'll be able to sustain economically but to build on what rafael is saying look at some of the countries adding to that china which is uses the red sea in the sues canal as a major shipping lane and you know you would expect china perhaps could exert pressure for example on the iranians to deal with this situation and they're not and also take a look what happened here yesterday i seen a figure in the irgc is killed in uh demascus alleged to be an israeli a strike where do we see iran's proxies retaliating the hooties maybe this attack we may discuss it there was a tax on american forces based in iraq by another his uh by another iranian proxy called hasbala hatib which is another Shiite militia there the iranians seem to feel that the americans are unwilling to they're the kind of weak underbelly here in the region they're willing to attack them and really not face consequences there was an article in the washington post i think it was a couple of weeks ago saying there are some members in the u.s defense department that are getting a patient with the body of the administration saying we can't we have to respond strongly to these iranian proxy attacks or even send a message a stronger message to iran itself that this is unacceptable speaking of one of the biggest iranian proxies hasbala one is actually happening with regards to the skirmishes that are breaking out in the north at the moment as of today being tuesday roads do appear closed but the civilian population has largely been evacuated and knowing that why would he continue to target some of the open area at least in the north is the threat actually being dealt with always it's sort of like you shoot your rockets at empty areas it's not harming anyone we'll just let you keep the status quo we have met some progress in the north there is a kind of redeployment of the radwan force and some of the hisbala troops going a bit further away from the border with israel but a lot of them remain you have to remember that a lot of them live there they are from south lebanon with their families they just don't want to evacuate so it's taking a while it's taking a little too long we know that the main hold is the again the american pressure we asked now for extra apache helicopters so far the Biden administration is not willing to give these extra helicopters and the main reason is because they're afraid we're going to use them to attack hisbala because we don't have enough to to do both south and north with what apaches we have we have sent a strong message I think today to the Biden administration by stating very clearly that Iran is behind everything here and we suppressed an Iranian general do just to prove our point it's true that it was an opportunity that you could miss this was a guy we were targeting for a while we missed him twice in the past so this time we got him but it's also a very strong message like we're like we're not kidding here we know who's being on all this and we know that it is really silly politically and geostrategically to make a difference between Hamas hisbala who it is it's all just one front there's no multi front it's only one front and we have to confront it unfortunately we're held back it's also possible and I'll finish with that that we want to wait the best time for us to operate it it might not be right now that we want to attack hisbala we are preparing this attack anyhow we're ready for it we're just probably waiting for the best time militarily and politically to do it now let's keep in mind about you that uh even with the civilians evacuated over the past two and a half months we've got 12 people have been killed uh in the north eight soldiers four civilians in any other period if over two and a half month period you would have that many people killed by hisbala five north this would have made a general war on hisbala but circumstances are not permitting it at this time absolutely I want to thank both Clev bin david Rafael you're showing me thank you both gentlemen for your expert analysis at this hour and on to a different front the families of those kidnapped by Hamas gathered at the main gate of the Israeli defense ministry complex in Tel Aviv on Monday they aim was to wait for security cabinet ministers in the hope of stopping their vehicles and pleading with them for help for their loved ones the protesters laid out our glasses in faring time is running out for each of the hostages still in the terror groups captivity we're standing here because the cabinet the cabinet is gathering here to discuss a deal the deal that's on the table and we're here to tell them that they have our back and that we trust them and believe them that they can make brave decisions and we expect them to do anything they can to bring back the hostages now I don't know who is going to come but if it will be the prime minister I will tell him that he is responsible to what happened in october 7 and he needs to fix it he needed to bring them back as soon as possible because they don't have any time over there and the tunnels and their life are in danger and we hope that they will make a deal as soon as possible because we need to save them we know that nothing is moving right now but we need someone to talk to us we need someone to tell us what they're going to do we need everyone to know that rome and and many more hostages are still held in gaza and we want people to remember them and to not forget that they're there and they need to come home well with me now in studio is of ir khanan the project manager and international spokesperson for israel is in geo thank you so much for coming into the studio this morning the NGO was founded in 2017 and it tends to broaden the lens of how israel is viewed and perceived why tell us a little bit about the organization yeah so we were established in 2017 because we realized that the power of youth is something that we have to harness and really take advantage of in the international arena especially since a lot of israelis travel abroad after their army service we really wanted to make sure that we know how to give them the right tools to advocate for israel and and our narrative while abroad and that's how it all started but now obviously we've reallocated all of our efforts and resources towards helping the hostages families and sharing the israeli narrative in terms of the war abroad right and also recently you have shifted to collecting some of the testimonies from the survivors just how difficult is it with so much of the criticism abroad with these testimonies that the rapes didn't occur that the atrocities in which they experienced didn't happen how do you combat the hate yeah it's definitely heartbreaking and very difficult to witness and that's kind of why i i started working with the families on october 7th really from day one we realized that the best way to try and combat the situation is just by humanizing the stories of the families i mean why is taking people hostage something that is a matter of public debate it shouldn't be it's a global humanitarian issue and that's what we're trying to project to the world and that's what we want the world to help support us and that's what we've been doing just humanizing them it's a it's a very hard but very bold undertaking absolutely and especially because israel's public relations tends to take such a hit during times of conflict and war in particular is this why NGOs such as yours are trying to get involved in the fight of making sure that israel's image perceived abroad shifts from the the usual anti-semitic and anti-zionist rhetoric to something a bit more positive yes definitely there have been a lot of NGOs and initiatives mostly from the civilian front that have been founded either as a result of october 7th or like israel is that have been here for a while that truly as you said are trying to show the israel israeli narrative for what it is which is a complex but full of life narrative so we're really i believe that the best way to combat the situation is again just by showing the people showing the hope that we have for returning the hostages and really trying to generate as much international support towards the humanitarian issues rather than you know the geopolitical complexities of the region which as we know far exceed my capabilities to advocate for because it's so complicated we really just want to make sure that people understand that our nation here has been hurt we have people that have been taken hostage civilians and that's what we're trying to advocate for as you mentioned really bringing the the human aspect the most basic aspect to a lot of their stories you were able on a dime to switch very quickly to relocating your your resources and what you guys were doing abroad to assisting the hostages and the families where do you see the organization going next i think we have to do everything in our power to keep showing these stories to keep having people to people conversations and advocating for the return of the hostages through storytelling another project that we've initiated is a VR virtual reality project in which we're going to take testimonies of people who have survived or have had family members taken hostage and we're going to showcase the campuses abroad particularly for university students and i think that's also one way in which we can try and really showcase what happened here and just bring it to people's attention get the international press international world to advocate for our cause and help bring these people home well we and i24news have the esteemed honor of being able to provide you with a platform to be able to do that of your hand and thank you so very much for joining me this morning and that brings us to a wrap up this special edition covering the 81st day of the war between israel and hamas well 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 line but the general perception is something that certainly needs to to be fought as well entrevistas exclusivas report es desde la zona de guerra la reacción de los países hispano parlantes welcome to this special edition on i24news i'm back 11th or coming to you live from our televive studios thanks for joining me it is day 81 of war between israel and hamas palestine and media has reported a heavy idea of bombardment and deadly raids overnight in the central and southern parts of the gaza strip the continued fighting coming as the israel defense forces continues to push on with its ground offensive to dismantle hamas and the threatened poses on the jewish state on tuesday morning the israeli military announced the deaths of two more soldiers killed in the fighting bringing the idea of death tolls since the start of its ground incursion to 158 meanwhile israeli prime minister benjamin itzanyahu has laid out three prerequisites for peace in an op-ed recently published in the wall street journal they are to destroy hamas demilitarize gaza and de-radicalize the whole of palestinian society let's cross live to our correspondent pia klush and those standing by for us on the israel gaza border for an update on the south pier what's the latest at this hour where there's been quite a lot of artillery pounding one area one specific area south of gaza city which is called the al-mugrata which is actually a little town which has control over the strategic access route to khanouness the salah hadin access and therefore there's been a lot of activity in that town aerial and artillery activity and navy as well in order to gain control of that particular section of the salah hadin access further north you can maybe see if daniel book will show you to the right of your monitor you'll see smoke billowing out of the to far al-daraj neighborhoods of gaza city where a brigade the 162 brigade of the idf is operating this is the last bastion the last stronghold of hamas in gaza city there's a whole battalion there fighting the israeli troops and this could take a few days if not weeks if we judge the fighting that was close to there in shijaya up until last week in as you mentioned in the southern gaza strip in the central sector of the refugee camps al-burej nusserat al-murazi they were heavy air strikes as well as in khanouness and in raffa during the night 100 air strikes during the night on presumed terror targets which in a sense indicates is an indication of the kind of fighting that's going on in the central area of the gaza strip with the three refugee camps ground forces are clashing with hamas forces east of al-burej for a few days already according to palestinian media affiliated to hamas and israel is gaining control bit by bit in the city of khanouness and around it there's been now you just heard an outgoing of an artillery position and in khanouness the ground offensive has gone has been going on since the second of december corresponding pier clashing late giving us the latest updates at this hour thank you very much for that and joining me now on skype from northern israel is political and military analyst reserve major eliot shadoff and here in studio with us is our prime time show host of the rundown kelev ben david gentlemen thank you both very much if i may reserve major i'd like to start by asking the idf seems to be shooting artillery over as well as airstrikes into the southern part of the gaza strip in order to make way for the preparations of the ground incursion moving more into the south what then happens to the refugees a lot of the gaza citizens that were told to move further south in order for the idf to operate in the center in the north of the strip like i think the the important thing to understand is that the division north and south of the strip is somewhat artificial we're talking about essentially three major urban areas the north being gaza city and its environs and and suburbs the south being khanouness and rafiah they don't take up the entire area either of the north or the south so using north and south as as terminology is is a bit overly general what we're seeing now are strikes air and artillery at specific targets and i think that's that's also important to understand we're not talking about what used to be called carpet bombing specific targets are being hit they're being targeted based on intelligence based on observation and the people who have fled are in a humanitarian zone in an area called the malasi which is out on the beach area of southern gaza not in the urban areas of rafiah right in kalev obviously the idf making every effort to avoid civilian casualties which becomes even harder to do when khamas doesn't really care for the lives of its civilians putting them in harm's way creating a double war crime shooting behind civilians at civilians what is this rule doing from a pr standpoint to the rest of the world in terms of now moving into the south where there are civilians located well i don't it's not just on from a pr standpoint the idf is using extraordinary means to try to get people from the north of the south actually interesting article today about unit 504 an intelligence unit of the army that's making that's called over personal cut calls with 50 000 palestinians that's one-on-one calls between these idf intelligence officers and palestinians in most cases telling them instructing them where to move where to move south the idf dropping leaflets of course setting up these safe zones taking i would say unprecedented measures for any military at least that i know of in trying to avoid civilian casualties there is also the question being raised whether the iaf is reducing its air more general air strikes and eliot spoke about precision strikes maybe even getting more precise some have raised issues whether due to american pressure especially in communists and or the the that a general area which has become so already was crowded has become so crowded with people coming down from gaza the gaza city area it's now so crowded makes any air strikes runs a high risk of civilian casualties but at the same time those civilian those airstrikes can be useful to soften a target before ground troops come in we've heard some rare criticism just in the past couple days from some government officials on that so the idf taking extraordinary measures to protect gaza civilians and perhaps in one half some have argued even at the at the extent of putting its own troops at risk and eliot a lot of these precision strikes obviously taking out not only hamas terror infrastructure but also trying to target some of the high-profile military ushalan that are in the strip what is the military doing or perhaps even the shin bet or the mosad in terms of trying to cut the head off the snake from the political standpoint we know a lot of the political heads of hamas are hiding out in qatar and turkey that are not actually in the gaza strip it's one thing eliminating the threats directly from israel's borders but if it doesn't eliminate hamas in its entirety surely it lives on and it is able to regroup and rearm absolutely but i think uh keeping in mind that operations against a political leadership as you say in qatar and in turkey they're also in lebanon those are not the kind of operations that that are a quick military fix these usually take months to set up often fail the first time or two or three until they actually succeed and we know this from not only israeli operations but american and other operations as well that that's a long-term goal long-term strategy in the strip itself i would say very very few a very small percentage infinitesimal of the strikes are targeting leaders simply because the majority of the strikes a rn artillery are being used for specific tactical military purposes softening up the targets and and here infrastructures is a combination of things it's storehouses it's launching points but it's also places where snipers or anti-tank teams are identified in other words these are real-time dynamic targets not just structures that we happen to know have been used for years as infrastructure and kelev speaking on the pr angle in just the last few minutes the red crescent in khan unis has claimed that their headquarters was bombed in a recent iaf strike no doubt the international press before the idea comes out and confirms this is going to say that israel is targeting NGOs israel is targeting aid and humanitarian facilities inside the gaza strip but that's only because that's what it appears perhaps on the outside being on top of the ground there's a whole tunnel network underneath gaza and it's not even a tunnel network i mean we have seen so much copious proof over the past two months of how hamas has specifically used offices and buildings associated with aid groups with hospitals red crescent being the middle east branch of the the the red cross and not just in tunnels and storing we just ran a report yesterday where we from the idf showing how the indonesia hospital in in north more in the north of gaza was being used by hamas storing vehicles there it's these these institutions have been compromised they have become centers of terror they have become launching pads for rockets they have been points of refuge for them and under by the way under international law if a an institution like this a medical facility becomes being used for military purposes as a then it becomes a legitimate target under international law and believe me there are uh you have your lawyers in the idf that before a specific target is uh attacked uh deal with that they look at the evidence and they do so so yes we're gonna see that kind of coverage and then israel is going to have to present the evidence it shows and it has been able to present that to show that these are being used as military facilities it seems that both from the military point of view and from public relations israel has to constantly go on the offensive gentlemen say with me because i want to bring you in on the other front of the war in israel's north the idf struck launch sites as well as other nearby areas in southern lebanon after two projectiles were fired toward the northern israeli community of manara on monday there were no reports of injuries from that attack as the border community has largely been evacuated meanwhile according to the semi-official iranian news agency tasnim a senior officer in iran's islamic revolutionary guard called was killed monday in an alleged israeli airstrike in the syrian capital of demascus now the elimination of brigadier general razi musabi has prompted threats from terran with iran's foreign minister warning that telegram faces a tough countdown and iran's president marisi vowing that israel will certainly pay for this crime i want to bring back in eliot obviously discussing here cutting the head of the snake in terms of hamas but we're talking about the big bad brother of hamas being khizbollah in the north a major perhaps the prime proxy of iran just how credible should israel be taking these these warnings and these threats we know that they've come time and time again but is this time a little bit different well first of all your uh khizbollah is not a proxy of iran khizbollah is a wholly owned subsidiary of the kutz force of the islamic revolutionary guard corps and in that it's very different from hamas which is a proxy khizbollah takes its orders directly from tehran so the chain of command going through people like musavi and he he was uh you showed him in a picture with sulimani the americans took out this is part of a chain of command that goes up to up to tehran and it's not just representative it's a direct line should israel take the threat seriously israel should take all of it all the threat seriously but from a country that is sworn to destroy israel we're coming from a homanias philosophy which drew its ideology from from hitler and the nazis it's hard to get terribly excited when somebody who says they're going to wipe you out repeatedly then threatens you so again the threat is serious but it's nothing new and it's not it's not an escalation they've already threatened to kill us all now a possible maritime attack has been reported close to the coast of yemen it's being investigated this tuesday morning it's according to the united king de maritime trade operations agency the body says that it received a report about an incident approximately 15 or equal miles west of the city of al-khodaida in yemen earlier in the morning there's been no further details but yemen's hooty rebels backed by ran however have carried out numerous missile intro and attacks on vessels sailing through the key red sea shipping lane in recent weeks causing a massive disturbance to global shipping clev not really a coincidence at least uh i'm i want to say that this irgc commander in damascus was taken out and it almost appears as a retaliation from another iranian back proxy the hooties toward the red sea right there were in the category of this a biggest subsidiary of iran because they're fully armed and backed by iran and yes i think it's telling by the way uh we saw that irgc commander taken out in syria where where is the iran threatens televieve it's not attacking televieve you notice or it or its subsidies as proxies they're going after soft targets what are those soft targets that shipping in uh in and around the red sea and gulf waters because so far the international community in especially the united states has not taken firm action uh to prevent those kind of attacks they've put this coalition but so far as only even talk to only taking defensive actions shooting down rockets not directly attacking uh hooty targets uh in yemen and also let's look at uh rack where the uh uh a sheite militia allied with iran that has brought a team a launch an attack on us forces there we're coming out now from the pentagon three us soldiers killed in that attack it's a series of attacks that have been launched there so uh really when when iran wants to strike out it's been striking at forces linked to the us a lot of people there reports in the u have been reports in the us press where the defense department officials putting pressure on the biden administration say we have to respond more forcefully to these provocations by iran and we'll see if the biden administration kind of wakes up and realizes it has to make some kind of deterrent action and get directly against iran ali it there's been a lot of analysts that point to the fact that with so many fronts in this war it's looking similar to the 60 war in 1967 and obviously the 1973 war but in your opinion just how accurate is that at the moment there's a full-scale war in the south with uh hamas in the gaza strip there seems to be skirmishes in the north skirmishes that occurring on the very southern tip being a latin obviously the red sea and obviously the volatile area that is the west bank is seeing escalations but just how close are we to a full fully fledged war on all of israel's flanks it's hard to predict the the northern front can erupt on any day it can erupt by intent or by accident in other words uh iran can give khizballah the orders to to launch a massive attack uh on the other hand it could happen inadvertently uh khizballah missile or rocket uh currently being aimed primarily at places that are the where the population has been evacuated but could certainly hit something and kill a bunch of people and that would cause an escalation that could lead to war without them having intended for it to happen on that day it's it's precarious i think we're we're certainly in the middle of a multi-front war if you throw khizballah iran syria and the hutis in along with with gaza and let's not forget what's happening in the west bank in judei and samaria it's it's reported every day but kind of quietly we're in a low intensity counter-terrorist operation war there as well so there are certain parallels i'd say more paralleling the sixth day war than the young kipper war in the sense that in the sixth day war there was a kind of one step two step even though they happened kind of simultaneously it was only after the breaking of the egyptian army that the operation started in jerusalem and then only after the defeat of the jordanians and the egyptians that start on the golan heights and these those were all by our initiative here we're not the only ones taking initiative right and speaking of a potential uh another front uh palestinian media has also reported heavy clashes with israeli forces in the west bank overnight the areas targeted were nablus jericho ramallah and bethlehem the latest escalation follows an idf arrest raid yesterday morning being monday in the janine refugee camp in the northern west bank the west bank has seen surging violence and arrests in parallel to israel's war on hamas in the gaza strip the israeli military saying it is dismantling hamas terrorists and affiliates in the west bank as well just a few moments ago notifications coming out that the idf seized makeshift rockets and firearms in those overnight raids in the west bank recent polls show that most palestinians in the region support hamas's october 7th attack on israel despite the death toll in gaza don't believe that the group committed atrocities and in fact support for hamas today in the west bank stands at 44 compared to just 12 three months ago now kelev obviously those numbers are striking but not really surprising israel much more able to investigate and to deal with some of the threats going on in the west bank which is inside of its territory but pretty alarming given the rise of how many people in the west bank palestinians mostly are affiliated or at least connected or support hamas right and by the we saw this situation prior to october 7th actually the mistaken conception at that time was that hamas wanted to keep the fight against israel focused more on the west bank rather than in gaza which turned out to be of course a completely misguided fatally so conception there and yes hamas we have seen by the way polling i always take even though i think these numbers probably are absolutely accurate i take a sort of grain assault when you do polling in the palestinian sector we're not the people there we're not living at democracy they're not speaking out freely we don't know actually what feelings these people have the shift the mood can shift there but certainly just looking at those polling numbers when we're talking about the two-state solution it brings us further from any idea of that moving forward certainly in any time in the near even mid future and again hamas is yes hamas has there's a big question now about what is the role going to be as hamas versus the palestinian authority more accurately or more accurately if the fatah movement that dominates that and one of the missions of the of israel and if this government is to eliminate the influence of hamas not only in the gaza strip where it has military influence uh military control but also potentially uh in the west bank judae and samaria as well all right i want to thank both the host of the prime time show the randan kalev ben david as well as political and military analyst reserve major elliot shut off for being with me this morning and for your analysis now 21-year-old bar kupstein was working security at the music festival in reem that fateful morning of october 7th bar was kidnapped almost 80 days ago and his aching grandparents have still not heard a word from or about him here's more in the story it is very difficult for me to talk about him because i love him so much a very sweet boy very cute likes to help everyone has hands of gold but lives within himself he's the only grandchild born with blue eyes like his grandfather and they were good friends and he was especially good friends with his father his father had a car accident and his mother was always by his father's side and he took care of his younger siblings when did he move in with you his father came to need total nursing care so we hired a foreign worker for him and a foreign worker needs a room so bar moved in with me i called it was 659 he answered and i said bar what's going on he replied grandma are you okay i said yes we are fine but there was someone next to him shouting look how many barrages how many rockets are coming so it asked bar where are you what's going on and he said grandma we'll be packing up soon packing up and leaving here i called bar again after half an hour he didn't answer he ran they showed me the picture i saw four or five other guys one with the torn shirt another bleeding and bar lying on the floor shouting bar bar bar i am a holocaust survivor these are worse than the german fascists worse to this day we are not calm killing because we don't know the more time that passes sorry this is more difficult it is since that sabbath you have not received any additional information about him nothing nothing nothing how do you feel these days with the fighting resumed and the swaps ended very difficult feelings we want them home who's taking care of them there they killed them there they will all come with a broken heart and we too will have a broken heart it's impossible we're waiting every day well what will happen when does he come back how is he there it's impossible bar we love you i'm sorry i can't help you with anything it's hard to look i only look at your photo come home i love you come back come back while we are still alive yes and that brings us to the end of this special edition at this hour but make sure to tune in again at the top of the hour where we'll have more updates on day 81 of war between israel and hamas in the gaza strip there has been reports overnight of intense fighting occurring in the center and also the south of the gaza strip as the idf continues with its ground incursion moving further south into the strip you are looking at live images on your screen of the israel gaza border you can see a pillar of smoke in the background there is intense fighting continues on day 81 stay tuned we'll be right back with more well is in a state of war families completely done down in their beds we have no idea where is she as our soldiers are fighting on the front line but the general perception is something that certainly needs to to be fought as well welcome to the special edition on i24 news i'm back to live and from our television studios thanks for joining me it is day 81 of war between israel and hamas palestine and media has reported a heavy idf bombardment and deadly raids overnight in the central and southern parts of the gaza strip the continued fighting coming as the israel defense forces continues to push on with its ground offensive to dismantle hamas and the threaded poses on the jewish state on tuesday morning the israeli military announced the deaths of two more soldiers killed in the fighting bringing the idf's death toll since the start of its ground incursion to 158 meanwhile is really prime minister benjamin ditanyahu has laid out three prerequisites for peace in an op-ed recently published in the wall street journal they are to destroy hamas demilitarized gaza and de-radicalize the whole of palestinian society let's cross live to our correspondent pia kloschen though standing by for us on the israel gaza border for an update on the south pia what's the latest at this hour where there's been quite a lot of artillery pounding one area one specific area south of gaza city which is called the al-mugrata which is actually a little town which has control over the strategic access road to hanunas the salah hadin access and therefore there's been a lot of activity in that town aerial and artillery activity and navy as well in order to gain control of that particular section of the salah hadin access further north you can maybe see if daniel bok will show you to the right of your monitor you'll see smoke billowing out of the to far al-daraj neighborhoods of gaza city where a brigade the 162 brigade of the idf is operating this is the last bastion the last stronghold of hamas in gaza city there's a whole battalion there fighting the israeli troops and this could take a few days if not weeks if we judge the fighting that was close to there in shijaya up until last week in as you mentioned in the southern gaza strip in the central sector of the refugee camps al-burej nusserat al-mugazi they were heavy air strikes as well as in hanunas and in rafah during the night 100 air strikes during the night on presumed terror targets which in a sense indicates is an indication of the kind of fighting that's going on in the central area of the gaza strip with the three refugee camps ground forces are clashing with hamas forces east of al-burej for a few days already according to palestine media affiliated to hamas and israel is gaining control bit by bit in the city of hanunas and around it there's been now you just heard an outgoing of an artillery position and in hanunas the ground offensive has gone has been going on since the second of december corresponding pier clashing late giving us the latest updates at this hour thank you very much for that and joining me now on skype from northern israel is political and military analyst reserve major elliott shadoff and here in studio with us is our prime time show host of the rundown klev ben david gentlemen thank you both very much if i may reserve major i'd like to start by asking the idf seems to be shooting artillery over as well as air strikes into the southern part of the gaza strip in order to make way for the preparations of the ground incursion moving more into the south what then happens to the refugees a lot of the gaza citizens that were told to move further south in order for the idf to operate in the center in the north of the strip like i think the the important thing to understand is that the division north and south of the strip is somewhat artificial we're talking about essentially three major urban areas the north being gaza city and its environs and and suburbs the south being hanunas and rafiah they don't take up the entire area either of the north or the south so using north and south as terminology is a bit overly general what we're seeing now are strikes air and artillery at specific targets and i think that's that's also important to understand we're not talking about what used to be called carpet bombing specific targets are being hit they're being targeted based on intelligence based on observation and the people who have fled are in a humanitarian zone uh in an area called the malasi which is out on the beach area of southern gaza not in the urban areas of rafiah right in kelev obviously the idf making uh every effort to avoid civilian casualties which becomes even harder to do when hamas doesn't really care for the lives of its civilians putting them in harm's way creating a double war crime uh shooting behind civilians at civilians what is this all doing from a pr standpoint to the rest of the world in terms of now moving into the south where there are civilians located well i don't know it's not just on a from a pr standpoint the idf is using extraordinary means to try to get people uh from the north to the south uh actually interesting article today about unit 504 an intelligence unit of the army that's making that's called over personal cut calls with 50 000 palestinians that's one on one calls between these idf intelligence officers and palestinians in most cases telling them instructing them where to move where to move south uh the idf dropping leaflets of cross setting up these safe zones uh taking uh i would say unprecedented measures for any military at least that i know of in trying to avoid civilian casualties there was also the question being raised whether the uh the i the iaf is reducing its air more general air strikes and uh elliott spoke about precision strikes uh maybe even getting more precise some have raised issues whether due to american pressure especially in communists uh and or the the that a general area which has become so cruelty was crowded has become so crowded with people coming down from uh gaza the gaza city area it's now so crowded makes any air strikes uh runs a high risk of civilian casualties but at the same time those civilians those air strikes can be useful uh to soften a target before ground troops come in we've heard some rare criticism just uh in the past couple days from some government officials uh on that so the idf taking extraordinary measures to protect gaza civilians uh and perhaps and one have some have argued even at the at the extent of putting its own troops at risk and elliott a lot of these precision strikes obviously taking out not only hamas territory infrastructure but also trying to target some of the high-profile military oshalon that are in the strip what is the military doing or perhaps even the shin bet or the mosad in terms of trying to cut the head of the snake from the political standpoint we know a lot of the political heads of hamas are hiding out in qatar and turkey that are not actually in the gaza strip it's one thing eliminating the threats directly from israel's borders but if it doesn't eliminate hamas in its entirety surely it lives on and it is able to regroup and reallm absolutely but i think uh keeping in mind that operations against a political leadership as you say in qatar and in turkey they're also in lebanon those are not the kind of operations that that are a quick military fix uh these usually take months to set up uh often fail the first time or two or three uh until they actually succeed and we know this from not only israeli operations but american and other operations as well uh that that's a long-term goal long-term uh strategy in the strip itself i would say very very few a very small percentage infinitesimal uh of the strikes are targeting leaders simply because the majority of the strikes air and artillery are being used for specific tactical military purposes softening up the targets and and here infrastructure is a combination of things it's storehouses it's launching points but it's also places where snipers or anti-tank teams are identified in other words these are real-time dynamic targets not just structures that we happen to know have been used for years uh as infrastructure and kelev speaking on the pr angle in just the last few minutes the red crescent in khan unis has claimed that their headquarters was bombed in a recent iaf strike um no doubt the international press before the idf comes on and confirms this is going to say that israel is targeting NGOs israel is targeting aid and humanitarian facilities inside the gaza strip but that's only because that's what it appears perhaps on the outside being on top of the ground there's a whole tunnel network underneath gaza and it's not even a tunnel network i mean we have seen so much copious proof over the past two months of how hamas has specifically used offices and buildings associated with aid groups with hospitals red crescent being the middle east branch of the the the red cross and not just in tunnels and storing we just ran a report yesterday where we from the idf showing how the indonesia hospital in uh in north more in the north of gaza was being used by hamas storing vehicles there it's these these institutions have been compromised they have become centers of terror they have become launching pads for rockets they have been points of refuge for them and under by the way under international law uh if a an institution like this a medical facility becomes being used for military purposes as uh then it becomes a legitimate target under international law and believe me there are uh you have your lawyers in the idf that before specific target is attacked uh deal with that they look at the evidence and they do so so yes we're going to see that kind of coverage and then israel is going to have to present the evidence it shows and it has been able to present that to show that these are being used as military facilities it seems that both from the military point of view and from public relations israel has to constantly go on the offensive gentlemen say with me because i want to bring you in on the other front of the war in israel's north the idf struck launch sites as well as other nearby areas in southern lebanon after two projectiles were fired toward the northern israeli community of minara on monday there were no reports of injuries from that attack as the border community has largely been evacuated meanwhile according to the semi-official iranian news agency tasnim a senior officer in iran's islamic revolutionary guard called was killed monday in an alleged israeli airstrike in the syrian capital of demascus now the elimination of brigadier general razi musabi has prompted threats from terran with iran's foreign minister warning the telegram faces a tough countdown and iran's president marisi vowing that israel will certainl