The IDF also recently struck five residential homes that allegedly housed members of Hamas, including the brother of Hamas chief Yahya Sinoir. Israeli military has now warned more than one million Gazans to head south within the next 24 hours away from the Israel-Gaza border and evacuating from Gaza City. Israeli attacks have killed 1,500 Palestinians, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. However, that number does not distinguish between Hamas terrorists and innocent civilians. While troops are mobilizing in southern Israel, northern Israel is also preparing for attacks from the Iranian-backed Hezbollah terror group in Lebanon. The Iranian Foreign Minister was greeted by representatives of Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic jihad when he landed in Beirut on Thursday. Foreign Minister Hussain Amir Ghulian had a clear threat to Israel that if the deep-hounding in Gaza continues, the war may open on other fronts. While the unrest continues inside Israel's borders, Hamas is calling on its supporters for a day of rage around the world, as Israelis and Jews abroad are urged to stay alert for violence today. Certainly a lot continues to happen, but we want to begin in southern Israel. For I-24 News correspondent Mary McAuliffe is in Stay Rote. Mary, this morning, tanks are mobilizing. We see thousands of troops on the ground. It's clear Israel is preparing for a ground invasion. But what exactly can you tell us from the southern city of Stay Rote? Hi, Nicole. Yes, we've been in the city probably about three hours now. We're just about two miles from the Gaza border, and so far we haven't seen any civilians walking around town. Everybody has been ordered to evacuate after the mayor of Stroh yesterday called for that to happen, because residents continue to be plagued by this incessant rocket fire in the area. We haven't heard any rocket alert sirens here. The last one that was in this area was at 8 p.m. last night, but still there are not many civilians walking around. I just saw the first civilian car just about 10 minutes ago. We still had a bullet in his window shield. So the damage from last week's events just under less than a week ago, these happened. The damage is still palpable. We can still see it walking around the streets, and we really do not see anybody walking around. It truly is a ghost town down there with the remnants of everything that did happen since Saturday. And meanwhile, as there are no residents, civilians down there, hopefully the IDF is continuing to attack the Gaza Strip. Overnight we hear 750 military targets in the Strip, correct? Absolutely. So we continue to see the IDF responding harshly inside the Gaza Strip, launching a number of different airstrikes, also firing tanks and mortar, and using other artillery at their disposal to try to attack what they're saying are some of these Hamas terrorist infrastructure within the Gaza Strip. In this warning, of course, to evacuate all residents from the northern area of the Gaza Strip coming now, but even Israeli defense officials are also warning that they understand this is not something that probably can happen within 24 hours. There's some 1 million people who live in the north part of the Gaza Strip, so this is certainly going to be a very difficult endeavor to try and remove these civilians and move them to, again, it's a very densely area of the Gaza Strip to move them all of them south. Whether or not that's feasible or not, we will have to remain seen today. For now, we do know Hamas is also telling international media that civilians in northern Gaza should ignore the IDF warnings, telling them that it is just more Israeli propaganda. Mary McAuliffe, we're looking at those live images from the Gaza border right now. Thank you so much for your coverage down in the south. Now I want to bring in our guests in studio. Michael Oren, former Israeli ambassador to the US and former deputy Israeli minister and parliament member, along with Rafael Jerusalem, former senior intelligence officer for the IDF and security analyst. Now, Rafael, I want to start with you. As Mary mentioned, the IDF is warning more than 1 million Gazans to flee the north to evacuate Gaza City because they are planning a major attack. So they're continuing to warn these civilians, yet Hamas is telling them to stay. Exactly. The Hamas is not holding 150 Israeli hostages. It's 150 hostages and 2 million people. These people are hostages of the Hamas, just the same. They are a human shield to protect the leaders and commanders of the Hamas who are dug in bunkers under schools, under hospitals. But this is OK with accusation. Now let's go to the concrete steps that have to be taken. You have to evacuate the district and the Hamas is disinforming the population, is creating confusion. There are in neighborhoods, certain neighborhoods, there is like a kind of local police. These police sometimes even prevents people from leaving because there are strategic places that you need civilians to be there, not only as human shields from the bombings of the IDF, but also as a playing card for propaganda on the international media. It's nice to have pictures of victims. So all this is a very cynical calculation. Now the IDF has done its job, Israel has done its job. We have warned properly the people, if you have a normal human being, especially with children, the first thing you do is run. You don't think, what am I going to do?  The second thing, now the responsibility lies with the international community. Whoever doesn't help these people is an accomplice to Hamas. It starts with the NGOs on the ground. There are many NGOs there, their job, like UNRWA also, from the UN, their job is to help the population. So please help the population, help them to evacuate, arrange for places in the south. In the south of Gaza, even though Gaza Strip is a very densely populated area, in the south there are many fields of any open areas, countryside, where people can stay. The next step being to put international pressure on Egypt to open its border towards Sinai. Because if Erdogan in Turkey could receive millions of Syrian refugees, if people from Ukraine could be displaced, there is no reason why Egypt should not welcome, at least for the time of the war, these people. And if Mr. Assisi doesn't want to do it, then start just parachuting, and especially the UN tents and mattresses and everything on Sinai to force him to do so. Because that's the way to help these people. If you're not doing this, then you're doing nothing, you're just speaking. So I think the European Union, these NGOs, the UN, now if they want to save the Palestinian people, short of declarations should start acting. They can do so. They can put the pressure. Sinai is the solution. So the south of Gaza is not the best solution. We will, of course, not strike there where these people are. I am sure that we already have even in mind to bring humanitarian ourselves and parachute food and medicine to these people in those spots. But now it's a whole mission to save these human lives, and yet again, they are being held hostage by the Hamas, by force, and the confusion that is being created. I think by now the Palestinians are used to the blah, blah of Hamas. They know exactly. I think what they have to do, I can understand that they're confused because of the whole situation. They're under huge stress.  You just go that way. Exactly. And we're continuing to hear more of just about the international response, as you were saying. Now it's on the international community. Michael Oren, what can you tell us about the international response that we're hearing from around the world right now? I just want to add to that really excellent analysis. Hamas doesn't have a military strategy. It has a military tactic. And that military tactic serves a media diplomatic and legal strategy. What is it? They attack us.  They get us to go in there, kill a lot of civilians. They're going to prevent. They don't want them to run away. They want them to die. And then that gets bad press, terrible press, pictures around the world. That becomes diplomatic pressure on us and ultimately becomes legal action against us, boycotts, sanctions to punish us for war crimes. So I do a tremendous amount of work with the international press around the clock. Prime time is usually 2, 3, 4 in the morning here. But what I've noticed over the last, say, even 24 hours is that the narrative is changing. OK, for about four days, we were unfortunately tragically the darlings of the international press. Everyone was focusing on the suffering of the Israeli families, those who had lost loved ones, those whose loved ones were captive, held hostage. And story after story after story, truly, truly heartbreaking. And you saw how this impacted the President of the United States. You saw how it impacted the Secretary of State, Blinken. And starting with the British press, the BBC, European fresh, French press, associated press, it is changing. Now it is about increasingly Palestinian suffering. And the initial headline of the New York Times was the first day was Netanyahu declares war. That was the headline. But I give you the first headlines from the top of the New York Times right now. Israel warns more than 1 million people to leave northern Gaza. As Israel prepares for war in Gaza, debate is out over how long and long. Israel's latest strikes on Gaza have drawn warnings from aid workers and residents of humanitarian catastrophe gone. Gone are the 1,200. Gone are the hostages. Gone are the massacres of Bahrain, Kva'aza. Almost gone. And so now the clock ticks. Now the clock ticks. And those of us involved in public diplomacy, the issue now is not explaining Israel so much to the world as it is to provide time and space for the IDF to do what it has to do to defend us. That's our goal here. But it's only going to get worse.  Yet one side of the images are being portrayed more than the other. I mean, we heard from US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken after viewing the images here in Israel, just how distraught he was. Meanwhile, he came to Israel. He just landed in Jordan. He's also going to be visiting Qatar, Egypt, the UAE. What exactly the purpose is Blinken's kind of world tour through the Middle East right now? What is he hoping to accomplish? He's trying to get an anti-Hamas from together. OK, so the reactions of the Saudis were very disappointing. The reactions of the Jordanians are almost uniformly disappointing. He wants to get everybody in the Middle East, those who are part of the peace camp in the Middle East, ostensible or deeply part of that peace. Because some countries are more closely aligned with us than others. UAE, for example, had a very positive response. Everyone on the same page about the need to deal with Hamas as a common threat, not just to Israel, but to moderate Arab regimes. Well, and meanwhile, as US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken is in some of these other states, I also know some other prominent figures are in Lebanon right now with the Iranian Foreign Minister as the proxy threat from Lebanon continues in the north. I actually want to cross live to our correspondent Pia Stechelback, who is in northern Israel right now. Pia, tense calm, but there's definitely preparing for action up there, especially with the Iranian foreign minister currently in Beirut. Well, definitely, Nicole. This night has been very calm this morning so far as well. Yesterday there were three alerts triggered in the Upper Galilee region. At least the last one turned out to be false alarm that followed a major triggering of alerts that also turned out to be false later on Wednesday, sending really hundreds of thousands here in the area and to shelters. And that really shows you how finely tuned the Israeli aerial alert systems are tuned. Residents really make sure to stay close to their homes to stay close to shelters. The streets are quite empty also yesterday when we were touring here in the north. You did not really see a lot of people in the area. You're right, the Iranian foreign minister, Hossein Amir Abdullahi, is in Beirut currently. And there have been meetings taking place between Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the Iranian foreign minister exactly in Beirut, also leading up to what we're seeing now. He was supposed to travel to Syria as part of his tour through the region. Now yesterday two strikes targeted both the Damascus airport and the Aleppo airport. They are attributed to Israel that has been striking Iranian-related targets or has been said to strike Iranian-related targets in Syria before the Israeli army usually does not comment on these incidents. But also we have seen mortar shelling coming from Syria on Tuesday before. In addition to that, the Israeli army yesterday night named another soldier that was killed on Wednesday when the Hezbollah militia from Lebanon fired mortar shells into Israel that comes in addition to three Israeli soldiers killed on Monday when members of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad tried to infiltrate also from southern Lebanon. As of now, Nicole, the atmosphere is tense, but it has been calm throughout the night, also this morning here. But people here are very much aware of the fact that if it comes to an escalation here that can be triggered by any minor security incident, this will be an escalation which consequences are not known yet as the northern front could develop into something that Israel has not known yet. 24 news correspondent P.S. Dekalbach, we will continue to keep an eye up there in the north. Thank you for your coverage up there. I want to bring in Raphael again with everything that is happening in the north. This is obviously one of the big threats to Israel, Hezbollah. However, Hezbollah is greater than Hamas. So if they get involved, what exactly does that mean for Israel? Well, it means a new front and a much more threatening front in terms of numbers of fighters. The Hezbollah doesn't have that many more fighters than Hamas, but in terms of shooting power of missiles, you're talking a very, very big threat. You're talking the conservative number is between 120,000 missiles of all sizes and ranges that can reach any part of Israel, some of them with large destructive capacities. Some of them might have already been equipped with sophisticated GPS equipment that would make them more lethal and precise, provided by the Iranians. We have over the years tried to destroy the convoys and the many ways of delivering these GPS systems to the Hezbollah, but they might have it. The threat is such that if you calculate, the threat is not only the number of missiles, it's the number of launching places from which to shoot the missiles. Why? Because if you shoot enough missiles that we've seen with the latest round with Gaza, and then the iron dome cannot stop them all. The iron dome is at the best a 95% success. So that leaves 5% out of 100 missiles, that's five. But out of 1,000, that's 50. And 50 with powerful ones, that's very, very bad. It can be in Haifa, where we have many chemical and oil storage that can explode. Very dangerous. So the Hezbollah today has a rough capacity of shooting at least 100 missiles in one go, and probably a capacity of an easy 1,000 a day. So you can do the mass. I'm not very good at that myself. So this is a huge threat. It's of course also the entry of a new factor in the war might encourage others to also embolden others to join. So for that, we have to bless the American presence in the Mediterranean, of course. And the Americans have said that when the Hezbollah starts, they might get, I don't think there will be a direct confrontation with the American troops, but there will still be some kind of an action. So it is something that we have to think of. Now, Hassan Nasrallah is not the Hamas. Hassan Nasrallah is very much more careful. He calculates his steps in a certain way, always for his own interest. So he's not even always obeying exactly to Tehran if it contradicts it. He has been known to say no sometimes, even though Tehran is the boss. The Hamas is in a vacuum. They do what they want in Gaza. Nobody's going to stop them. Hassan Nasrallah, the Hezbollah, they operate inside the nation, the Lebanon, with the government, with an army. He has to calculate his move. And today, I just finished with that. His dilemma is on the one hand. He doesn't have the effect of surprise that the Hamas had. On the other hand, he has an opportunity that might never come back. That we are so busy with the south and maybe something else that now is a time to strike. And just remember that there are other fronts that you're going to have to deal with, one being, of course, the West Bank that is so far quiet. I want to ask you also, because Israel has repeatedly said, Hamas will no longer exist at the end of all of this. But if Hezbollah gets involved as well, is that statement going to stand? Will Hezbollah no longer exist as well? Does Israel have that capability? Well, ideally, yes. The capability, yes. We have also the political will. It seems that, yes. We will prevail. We shall prevail. There are no doubt we have just to stick, because sometimes you put an objective and on the way you lose the objective and you change your mind. So let's do hope that this time, because the Israeli public opinion is united in this, let's hope that this time, if we have hostages, well, there should be the last ever hostages. We will have some casualties in the IDF. Let's hope there will be the last ones and not just yet another round. So this being said, it will cost us a lot. It will be very bad also for our economy. It will impact the weeks of the reserve being cold and the economy stopped. The price is huge. So if the price is huge, then the result should be just as huge. So we have to go until the end. It's doable. We can do it. We have the strength to do it. We were good enough for that. And now let's just hope that we can do it by stages and not everybody together. Let's finish with the Hamas and then let's deal with the Hezbollah. Take it one at a time. Now meanwhile, as we're talking about everything that's happening inside Israel's border, we're also hearing calls from Hamas for this day of rage around the world. Hamas supporters to come out. We're hearing stories of Israelis, Jews. They're told to stay on high alert for potential violence today. Michael, what can you tell us as far as this potential day of rage and what could unfold? Very, very dangerous. I'm an advisor to a wonderful organization called the Secure Community Network, SCN in the United States. It's an organization of 90 former FBI officials, law enforcement officials who monitor and intercept threats to about 12,400 Jewish institutions across North America. And they interact with the law enforcement officials and with the FBI. It's been very effective so far. We saw in 2021, during the last round of fighting with Hamas, that anti-Semitic attacks against Jewish individuals, against institutions went up about 80%. So it's a direct connection between the two. Those of you who think that anti-Semitism is an anti-Semitism, here's your hard and fast truth, proof of it. And so we have to be very, very high alert. And SCN interacting with FBI and law enforcement are really very, very closely monitoring these threats. And Jewish institutions, many of them, Jewish schools are closed. And the Shabbat should be certainly a challenge as people go to pray, but they're gonna have to guard their synagogues very closely. I think that's a great point to make that this is happening on the Jewish state of Shabbat. Now we are hearing these strong condemnations from different leaders around the world, different governments standing with Israel. However, the official response seems to be different than the public response from different... It's on the country. In the United States, of course, it's very, very high support. In France, very different. But even from the public in the United States, you are seeing these different rallies.  Oh, that's very good. The Jewish community is rallying very strong. And you have local leaders like the mayor of New York and these wonderful, wonderful rallies in support of Israel. You have protests. You have protests saying horrible things about Jews, putting in gas chambers. The one that went viral was the protest in Sydney in front of the opera house. Yes, right now that's small. It is small. The more warrants of the phenomenon is going on American campuses, including the elite campuses, Harvard, 36 student organizations signing a petition, putting all the blame on the state of Israel. This has happened at other campuses in NYU, CUNY. And it is interesting not to see just the student reaction, see what the official reaction is. So it took the Harvard administration many days to react, NYU similarly. So we have to see whether the presence of these universities come out and condemn it. So far they've been rather reluctant. And as we continue to hear more about the atrocities that are happening, it's interesting to just look at the response on the international spectrum. Now Rafael, we are hearing just more information about the exact events that unfolded on Saturday reports that at least 2,500 terrorists were able to infiltrate. And our most recent report says about 70% were affiliated with Hamas. Now I want to dig into that statistic because why were only 70% affiliated with Hamas? What were the other 30%? So mostly Islamic jihad. That's the number two in Gaza. But also minor, they are like minor little groups. Some of them even affiliated to ISIS, to Daesh. So all kinds of different cells. And this is a problem when we speak of the hostage situation because the Hamas doesn't hold all the hostages. At first the Hamas, and not even even now, they have a complete list of the hostages that are held in Gaza, which one they hold. And that took them quite a while to organize that list. But some of them are at the hands of the Islamic jihad, for sure. And maybe some others at the hands of these minor organizations see what we don't know or people don't know is that there are loads and loads of small organizations. Everyone that starts an organization can be 20 people, can be 100 people, and they call themselves all kinds of names, Al-Adis, Muhammad, that, and that's it. And they are out of control. Actually Islamic jihad is more in control of the Hamas in Gaza. I mean, there are big factions. They coordinate their actions. Sometimes they argue, but more or less they're on the same page. But all these little ones, especially those affiliated to Al-Qaeda or Daesh, they are completely autonomous. There's no way to control them. Of course, strategically, they do not represent the threat. They don't have missiles, but they create havoc. So they join in. The only question that's to be answered at a later date, of course, is how come if this was a top secret operation of the Hamas and the Islamic jihad, how come these other organizations knew about it and could join at the last minute? So they also knew. That's a lot of people knowing for a top secret operation that didn't leak at all. That's amazing. There's definitely going to be a lot of information that needs to be released following this. Now you quickly mentioned the hostage situation. As we know that Israel has urged the 1 million Gazans to evacuate from Gaza City, from the north. How does this impact the hostage situation? The hostage situation, I'm afraid to say, is a problem without a solution. Would we know where they are? We could even dream of some kind of antebe, a commando operation, even though the chances of succeeding before the hostages are executed by those who ravaged them are very slim. But we could have that kind of dream, and we don't know where they are. And they are in many different locations, compared to the nuclear in Iran. It's all in different locations, not just one strike. So really what the real problem is, is that we cannot make the Hamas kneel down and give it. So we'll give the chance to Qatar and all the diplomatic ballet that's going around this. But really, really, the Hamas is not interested in even willing and dealing about this. They don't want to liberate Palestinian prisoners in our jails. They're not even asking Israelis to stop bombing. They're not asking for nothing. Why? These hostages are now the life insurance of the big leaders of the Hamas. Meaning, when the IDF comes in, and if it comes in and reaches them, then they will say, let us go out of here through Egypt. Let's spare us. You want your hostages back? Spare us. So now these hostages are the only last rampart after the human shield of all the Gazan people. The last rampart are these Israeli hostages when Mr. Sinoir, when he will have a gun pointed at his head, will say, OK, I'll give you ten hostages. Please let me go. It's going to be a very difficult situation that continues to unfold. Rafael Jusami, Michael Oren, thank you so much for joining us on this breaking news edition of the I-24 News Desk, continuing to break down the latest developments here in Israel. Thank you. Israel is officially in a state of war. This is a very active scene, and we need to get in the car as we're talking. Within 100 soldiers and civilians have been kidnapped. Help us. We don't know what to do. We just don't know anything. Entire families, including babies and children and elderly, were butchered in their beds. Awaken the giant, and we are ready, and we are strong. Everyone is showing up. This is the unity. The past but not the future. It's natural. From the start, from the fish to the production of the food of the plants. Because we go subsea and we utilize the hydrostatic pressure, the weight or the water above your head, we're able to save energy. A breaking news edition of the I-24 News Desk, kind of a holesthetic life in Tel Aviv. People around the country are waking up to the seventh day of war here in Israel. Over the past week, the death toll has climbed to more than 1,300 lives lost. And while rocket alerts continue to blare through the south during the overnight hours, Israel is striking back in the Gaza Strip, hitting 750 military targets overnight. The IDF also recently struck five residential homes that allegedly housed members of Hamas, including the brother of Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar. Israeli military has now warned more than one million Gazans to head south within the next 24 hours, away from the Israel-Gaza border and evacuating from Gaza city. Israeli attacks have killed 1,500 Palestinians according to the Palestinian health ministry. However, that number does not distinguish between Hamas terrorists and innocent civilians. Now while troops are mobilizing in southern Israel, northern Israel is also preparing for attacks from the Iranian-backed Hezbollah terror group in Lebanon. The Iranian foreign minister was greeted by representatives of Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad when he landed in Beirut on Thursday. Foreign minister Hussain Amir Aqdolian had a clear threat to Israel that if the pounding in Gaza continues, the war may open on other fronts. While the unrest continues inside Israel's borders, Hamas is calling on its supporters for a day of rage around the world. As Israelis and Jews abroad are urged to stay alert for violence today. Certainly a lot continues to happen, but we wanna begin in southern Israel. For I-24 News correspondent Mary McAuliffe is in Stay Rote. Mary, this morning, tanks are mobilizing. We see thousands of troops on the ground. It's clear Israel is preparing for a ground invasion, but what exactly can you tell us from the southern city of Stay Rote? Hi, Nicole. Yeah, so we've been in the city probably about three hours now. We're just about two miles from the Gaza border, and so far we haven't seen any civilians walking around town. Everybody has been ordered to evacuate after the mayor of Stroh yesterday called for that to happen because residents continue to be plagued by this incessant rocket fire in the area. We haven't heard any rocket alert sirens here. The last one that was in this area was at 8 p.m. last night, but still there are not many civilians walking around. I just saw the first civilian car just about 10 minutes ago. We still had a bullet in his window shield. So the damage from last week's events, just under less than a week ago, these happened. The damage is still palpable. We can still see it walking around the streets, and we really do not see anybody walking around. It truly is a ghost town down there with the remnants of everything that did happen since Saturday. And meanwhile, as there are no residents, civilians down there, hopefully the IDF is continuing to attack the Gaza Strip. Overnight, we hear 750 military targets in the Strip, correct? Absolutely, so we continue to see the IDF responding harshly inside the Gaza Strip, launching a number of different airstrikes, also firing tanks and mortar, and using other artillery at their disposal to try to attack what they're saying are some of these Hamas-Terrace infrastructure within the Gaza Strip. In this warning, of course, to evacuate all residents from the northern area of the Gaza Strip coming now, but even Israeli defense officials are also warning that they understand this is not something that probably can happen within 24 hours. There's some one million people who live in the north part of the Gaza Strip, so this is certainly going to be a very difficult endeavor to try and remove these civilians and move them to, again, it's a very densely area of the Gaza Strip to move them all of them south. Whether or not that's feasible or not, we will have to remain seen today. For now, we do know Hamas is also telling international media that civilians in northern Gaza should ignore the IDF warnings, telling them that it is just more Israeli propaganda. Mary McAuliffe, we're looking at those live images from the Gaza border right now. Thank you so much for your coverage down in the south. Now I want to bring in our guests in studio. Michael Oren, former Israeli ambassador to the US and former deputy Israeli minister and parliament member, along with Rafael Jerusalem, former senior intelligence officer for the IDF and security analyst. Now, Rafael, I want to start with you. As Mary mentioned, the IDF is warning more than one million Gazans to flee the north to evacuate Gaza city because they are planning a major attack. So they're continuing to warn these civilians, yet Hamas is telling them to stay. Exactly. The Hamas is not holding the 150 Israeli hostages. It's 150 hostages and 2 million people. These people are hostages of the Hamas, just the same. They are a human shield to protect the leaders and commanders of the Hamas who are dug in bunkers and their schools and their hospitals. But this is okay with accusation. Now let's go to the concrete steps that have to be taken. You have to evacuate this truth and the Hamas is disinforming the population, is creating confusion. There are in neighborhoods, certain neighborhoods, there is like a kind of local police. These police sometimes even prevents people from leaving because there are strategic places that you need civilians to be there. And not only as human shields from the bombings of the IDF, but also as a playing card for propaganda on international media. It's nice to have pictures of victims. So all this is a very cynical calculation. Now the IDF has done its job, Israel has done its job. We have warned properly the people if you have a normal human being, especially with children, the first thing you do is run. You don't think, what am I gonna do? The normal reaction, if you are a responsible person, first of all leave because your life is at stake. The second thing, now the responsibility lies with the international community. Whoever doesn't help these people is an accomplice to Hamas. It starts with the NGOs on the ground. There are many NGOs there, their job, like UNRWA also from the UN, their job is to help the population. So please help the population, help them to evacuate a range for places in the south. In the south of Gaza, even though Gaza Strip is a very densely populated area, in the south there are many fields of any open areas countryside where people can stay. The next step being to put international pressure on Egypt to open its border towards Sinai, because if Erdogan in Turkey could receive millions of Syrian refugees, if people from Ukraine could be displaced, there's no reason why Egypt should not welcome at least for the time of the war these people. And if Mr. Assisi doesn't want to do it, then start just parachuting, and especially the UN tents and mattresses and everything on Sinai to force him to do so, because that's the way to help these people. If you're not doing this, then you're doing nothing, you're just speaking. So I think that your opinion, these NGOs, the UN, now if they want to save the Palestinian people short of declarations should start acting, they can do so, they can put the pressure, Sinai is the solution, the south of Gaza is not the best solution, we will of course not strike there where these people are. I am sure that we already have even in mind to bring humanitarian ourselves and parachute food and medicine to these people in those spots, but now it's a whole mission to save these human lives.  Do that exactly, and we're continuing to hear more just about the international response, as you were saying, now it's on the international community. Michael Oren, what can you tell us about the international response that we're hearing from around the world right now? I just wanna add to that really excellent analysis. Hamas doesn't have a military strategy, it has a military tactic, and that military tactic serves a media diplomatic and legal strategy.  So I do a tremendous amount of work with the international press around the clock, prime time is usually two, three, four in the morning here, but what I've noticed over the last, say even 24 hours is the narrative is changing. Okay, for about four days, we were unfortunately tragically the darlings of the international press. Everyone was focusing on the suffering of the Israeli families, those who had lost loved ones, those whose loved ones were captive, held hostage, and story after story after story, truly, truly heartbreaking, and you saw how this impacted the president in the United States, you saw how it impacted the secretary of state, Blinken, and starting with the British press, the BBC, European fresh, French press, associated press, it is changing. Now it is about increasingly Palestinian suffering, and the initial headline in the New York Times was, the first day was Netanyahu declares war, that was the headline, but I give you the first headlines from the top of the New York Times right now. Israel warns more than one million people to leave northern Gaza. As Israel prepares for war in Gaza, debate is over how long and long. Israel's latest strikes on Gaza have drawn warnings from aid workers and residents of humanitarian catastrophe gone, gone are the 1200, gone are the hostages, gone are the massacres of the area in Kva'u-Aza, almost gone. And so now the clock ticks, now the clock ticks. And those of us involved in public diplomacy, the issue now is not explaining Israel so much to the world as it is to provide time and space for the IDF to do what it has to do to defend us. That's our goal here, but it's only gonna get worse.  I mean, we heard from US Secretary of State Antony Blinken after viewing the images here in Israel, just how distraught he was. Meanwhile, he came to Israel, he just landed in Jordan. He's also going to be visiting Qatar, Egypt, the UAE. What exactly the purpose is Blinken's kind of world tour through the Middle East right now? What is he hoping to accomplish? He's trying to get an anti-Hamas from together. Okay, so the reactions of the Saudis were very disappointing. The reactions of the Jordanians are almost uniformly disappointing. He wants to get everybody in the Middle East, those who are part of the peace camp in the Middle East, extensible or deeply part of that peace, because some countries are more closely aligned with us than others. UAE, for example, had a very positive response. You have one on the same page about the need to deal with Hamas as a common threat, not just to Israel, but to moderate Arab regimes. Well, and meanwhile, as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is in some of these other states, we also know some other prominent figures are in Lebanon right now, with the Iranian foreign minister as the proxy threat from Lebanon continues in the north. I actually want to cross live to our correspondent Pia Stechelback, who is in northern Israel right now. Pia, tense calm, but there's definitely preparing for action up there, especially with the Iranian foreign minister currently in Beirut. Well, definitely Nicole. This night has been very calm this morning so far as well. Yesterday, there were three alerts triggered in the Upper Galilee region. At least the last one turned out to be false alarm that followed a major triggering of alerts that also turned out to be false later on Wednesday, sending really hundreds of thousands here in the area into shelters. And that really shows you how finely tuned the Israeli aerial alert systems are tuned. Residents really make sure to stay close to their homes, to stay close to shelters. The streets are quite empty also yesterday when we were touring here in the north. You did not really see a lot of people in the area. You're right, the Iranian foreign minister, Hossein Amir Abdullahan is in Beirut currently. And there have been meetings taking place between Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic jihad, and the Iranian foreign minister exactly in Beirut, also leading up to what we're seeing now. He was supposed to travel to Syria as part of his tour through the region. Now yesterday, two strikes targeted both the Damascus airport and the Aleppo airport. They are attributed to Israel that has been striking Iranian related targets or has been said to strike Iranian related targets in Syria before the Israeli army usually does not comment on these incidents. But also we have seen mortar shelling coming from Syria on Tuesday before. In addition to that, the Israeli army yesterday night named another soldier that was killed on Wednesday when the Hezbollah militia from Lebanon fired mortar shells into Israel that comes in addition to three Israeli soldiers killed on Monday when members of the Palestinian Islamic jihad tried to infiltrate also from southern Lebanon. As of now, Nicole, the atmosphere is tense, but it has been calm throughout the night, also this morning here. But people here are very much aware of the fact that if it comes to an escalation here that can be triggered by any minor security incident. This will be an escalation which consequences are not known yet as the Northern Front could develop into something that Israel has not known yet. At 24 News correspondent Piaz Dekalbach, we will continue to keep an eye up there in the North. Thank you for your coverage up there. I want to bring in Rafael again with everything that is happening in the North. This is obviously one of the big threats to Israel, Hezbollah. However, Hezbollah is greater than Hamas, so if they get involved, what exactly does that mean for Israel? Well, it means a new front and a much more threatening front. In terms of numbers of fighters, the Hezbollah doesn't have that many more fighters than Hamas, but in terms of shooting power of missiles, you're talking a very, very big threat. You're talking the conservative number is between 120,000 missiles of all sizes and ranges that can reach any part of Israel, some of them with large destructive capacities. Some of them might have already been equipped with sophisticated GPS equipment that would make them more lethal and precise, provided by the Iranians. We have over the years tried to destroy the convoys and the many ways of delivering these GPS systems to the Hezbollah, but they might have it. The threat is such that if you calculate, the threat is not only the number of missiles, it's the number of launching places from which to shoot the missiles. Why? Because if you shoot enough missiles, then we've seen with the latest round with Gaza, and then the iron dome cannot stop them all. The iron dome is at the best 95% success, so that leaves 5%, out of 100 missiles, that's 5, but out of 1,000, that's 50. And 50 with powerful ones, that's very, very bad. It can be in Haifa, where we have many chemical and oil storage that can explode, very dangerous. So the Hezbollah today has a rough capacity of shooting at least 100 missiles in one go, and probably the capacity of an easy 1,000 a day. So you can do the math, I'm not very good at that myself. So this is a huge threat. It's, of course, also the entry of a new factor in the war might encourage others to also embolden others to join. So for that, we have to bless the American presence in the Mediterranean, of course. And the Americans have said that when the Hezbollah start, they might get, I don't think there will be a direct confrontation with the American troops, but there will still be some kind of an action. So it is something that we have to think of. Now, Hassan Nasrallah is not the Hamas. Hassan Nasrallah is very much more careful. He calculates his steps in a certain way, always for his own interest. So he's not even always obeying exactly to Tehran if he contradicts it. He has been known to say no sometimes, even though Tehran is the boss, the Hamas is in a vacuum. They do what they want in Gaza. Nobody's going to stop them. Hassan Nasrallah, the Hezbollah, they operate inside the nation, the Lebanon, with a government, with an army. He has to calculate his move. And today, I just finished with that, his dilemma is on the one hand. He doesn't have the effect of surprise that the Hamas had. On the other hand, he has an opportunity that might never come back, that we are so busy with the South, and maybe something else that now is the time to strike. And just remember that there are other fronts that you're going to have to deal with when being, of course, the West Bank that is so far quiet. I want to ask you also, because Israel has repeatedly said, Hamas will no longer exist at the end of all of this. But if Hezbollah gets involved as well, is that statement going to stand? Will Hezbollah no longer exist as well? Does Israel have that capability? Well, ideally, yes. The capability, yes. Do we have also the political will? It seems that, yes. We will prevail. We shall prevail. They have no doubt. We have just to stick, because sometimes you put an objective, and on the way you lose the objective and you change your mind. So let's do hope that this time, because the Israeli public opinion is united in this, let's hope that this time, if we have hostages, well, there should be the last ever hostages. We will have some casualties in the IDF. Let's hope there will be the last ones and not just yet another round. So this being said, it will cost us a lot. It will be very bad also for our economy. It will impact, you know, I mean the weeks of the reserve being cold and the economy stopped. The price is huge. So if the price is huge, then the result should be just as huge. So we have to go until the end. It's doable. We can do it. We have the strength to do it. We're good enough for that. Now let's just hope that we can do it by stages and not everybody together. Let's finish with the Hamas and then let's deal with the Hezbollah. Take it one at a time. Now meanwhile, as we're talking about everything that's happening inside Israel's border, we're also hearing calls from Hamas for this day of rage around the world. Hamas supporters to come out. We're hearing stories of Israelis, Jews. They're told to stay on high alert for potential violence today. Michael, what can you tell us as far as this potential day of rage and what could unfold? Very, very dangerous. I'm an advisor to a wonderful organization called the Secure Community Network, SCN in the United States. It's an organization of 90 former FBI officials, law enforcement officials who monitor and intercept threats to about 12,400 Jewish institutions across North America. And they interact with the law enforcement officials and with the FBI. It's been very effective so far. We saw in 2021 during the last round of fighting with Hamas that anti-Semitic attacks against Jewish individuals, against institutions went up about 80%. So it's a direct connection between the two. Those of you who think that anti-Semitism is an anti-Semitism, here's your hard and fast truth proof of it. And so we have to be very, very high alert. And SCN interacting with FBI and law enforcement are going to be very, very closely monitoring these threats. And Jewish institutions, many of them Jewish schools are closed. And the Shabbat should be certainly a challenge as people go to pray, but they're going to have to guard their synagogues very closely. I think that's a great point to make that this is happening on the Jewish state of Shabbat. Now we are hearing these strong condemnations from different leaders around the world, different governments standing with Israel. However, the official response seems to be different than the public response from different... It's on the country, in the United States, of course, it's very, very high support. In France, very different. But even from the public in the United States, you are seeing these different rallies.  Oh, that's very good. The Jewish community is rallying very strong. And you have local leaders like the mayor of New York and these wonderful, wonderful rallies in support of Israel. You have protests. You have protests saying horrible things about Jews, putting in gas chambers, the one that went viral was the protest in Sydney in front of the opera house. Yes, right now that's small. It is small. The more warrants of phenomena is going on American campuses, including the elite campuses, Harvard, 36 student organizations signing a petition, putting all the blame on the state of Israel. This has happened at other campuses in NYU, CUNY. And it is interesting not to see just the student reaction, see what the official reaction is. So it took the Harvard administration many days to react, NYU similarly. So we have to see whether the presence of these universities come out and condemn it. So far, they've been rather reluctant. And as we continue to hear more about the atrocities that are happening, it's interesting to just look at the response on the international spectrum. Now, Rafael, we are hearing just more information about the exact events that unfolded on Saturday, reports that at least 2,500 terrorists were able to infiltrate. And our most recent report says about 70% were affiliated with Hamas. Now, I want to dig into that statistic because why were only 70% affiliated with Hamas? What were the other 30%? So mostly Islamic jihad. That's the number two in Gaza. But also, they are like minor little groups. Some of them even are affiliated to ISIS, to Daesh. So all kinds of different cells. And this is a problem when we speak of the hostage situation because the Hamas doesn't hold all the hostages. At first, the Hamas are not even even now. They have a complete list of the hostages that are held in Gaza. They know which one they hold. And that took them quite a while to organize that list. But some of them are at the hands of the Islamic jihad, for sure. And maybe some others at the hands of these minor organizations see what we don't know, or people don't know, is that there are loads and loads of small organizations. Everyone starts an organization. There can be 20 people. There can be 100 people. And they call themselves all kinds of names, Allah, this, Muhammad, that. And that's it. And they are out of control. Actually, Islamic jihad is more in control of the Hamas in Gaza. I mean, there are big factions. They coordinate their actions. Sometimes they argue, but more or less, they're on the same page. But all these little ones, especially those affiliated to Al-Qaeda or Daesh, they are completely autonomous. There's no way to control them. Of course, strategically, they do not represent the threat. They don't have missiles. But they create havoc. So they join in. The only question that's to be answered at a later date, of course, is, how come if this was a top secret operation of the Hamas and the Islamic jihad, how come these other organizations knew about it and could join at the last minute? So they also knew. That's a lot of people knowing for a top secret operation that didn't leak at all. That's amazing. There's definitely going to be a lot of information that needs to be released following this. Now you quickly mentioned the hostage situation. As we know that Israel has urged the 1 million Gazans to evacuate from Gaza City, from the north. How does this impact the hostage situation? The hostage situation, I'm afraid to say, is a problem without a solution. Would we know where they are? We could even dream of some kind of the antebe, a commando operation, even though the chances of succeeding before the hostages are executed by those who ravaged them are very slim. But we could have that kind of dream, and we don't know where they are. And they are in many different locations, cooperating the nuclear in Iran. It's all in different locations, not just one strike. So really what the real problem is, is that we cannot make the Hamas kneel down and give it. So we'll give the chance to Qatar and all the diplomatic ballet that's going around this. But really, really, the Hamas is not interested in even willing and dealing about this. They don't want to liberate Palestinian prisoners in our jails. They're not even asking Israelis to stop bombing. They're not asking for nothing. Why? These hostages are now the life insurance of the big leaders of the Hamas, meaning when the IDF comes in and if it comes in and reaches them, then they will say, let us go out of here through Egypt. Let's spare us. You want your hostages back? Spare us. So now these hostages are the only last rampart after the human shield of all the Gazan people. The last rampart are these Israeli hostages when Mr. Sinoir, when he will have a gun pointed at his head, will say, OK, I'll give you 10 hostages. Please let me go. It's going to be a very difficult situation that continues to unfold. Rafael Drew Salmi, Michael Oren, thank you so much for joining us on this breaking news edition of the I-24 News Dats, continuing to break down the latest developments here in Israel. Thank you. Israel is at war. Since the early hours of the morning, Israel has been facing infiltrations of terrorists, kidnapping of Israelis, and a barrage of thousands of rockets emanating from the Gaza Strip, the biggest and bloodiest attack in years. Tune in for our extensive and rolling coverage of the Hamas deadly attack on Israel. With reporters on the ground in depth analysis and most updated and accurate information, stay tuned with I-24 News. It's officially in a state of war. This is a very active scene, and we need to get in the car as we're talking. Within 100 soldiers and civilians have been kidnapped. Help us. We don't want to do it. We just don't know anything. Entire families, including babies and children and elderly, were butchered in their beds. Awaken the giant, and we are ready, and we are strong. Everyone is showing up. This is the unity. This is a breaking news edition of the I-24 News Desk. I'm Nicole Zettick, live in Tel Aviv. We've entered the seventh day of war here in Israel. Over the past week, the death toll has climbed to more than 1,300 lives lost. And while rocket alerts continue to blare through the south during the overnight hours, Israel is striking back in the Gaza Strip, hitting 750 military targets overnight. The IDF also recently struck five residential homes that allegedly housed members of Hamas, including the brother of Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar. Israeli military has now warned more than 1 million Gazans to head south within the next 24 hours, away from the Israel-Gaza border and evacuating from Gaza City. Israeli attacks have killed 1,500 Palestinians according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. However, that number does not distinguish between Hamas terrorists and innocent civilians. All troops are mobilizing in southern Israel. Northern Israel is also preparing for attacks from the Iranian-backed Hezbollah terror group in Lebanon. The Iranian foreign minister was greeted by representatives of Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad when he landed in Beirut on Thursday. Foreign minister Hussein Amir Abdulyan had a clear threat to Israel, that if the pounding in Gaza continues, the war may open on other fronts. All of this while the unrest continues inside Israel's borders, Hamas is calling on its supporters for a day of rage around the world. As Israelis and Jews abroad are urged to stay alert for violence today. Certainly a lot continues to unfold, but we wanna begin with our correspondent, Piaz Dagobak, who's in northern Israel right now. Piaz, let's begin with the latest. Iranian foreign minister in Beirut meeting with members of Hamas, the PIJ, and now also Hezbollah chief, Hassan Nasrullah. What can you tell us? Well, Nicole, the readout according to Lebanese media and Hezbollah affiliated channel, Amayyadine says that they meant to discuss, of course, the regional developments, the results of the Hamas operation on Israel. And Amir Abdulyan basically said that his goal of his visit to Lebanon is to keep Lebanon safe. But he also said that the continuing atrocities of Israel in Gaza might open the scene, open the war to other fronts. That's what he threatened with, and that he suggests to call it a regional meeting of regional leaders to discuss further developments. Now we do know that it is not the first time that the Iranian foreign minister travels to Beirut to meet with exactly the Hamas leadership, the PIJ leadership, and also Hezbollah representatives, including its leader Hassan Nasrullah. Now he was supposed to continue to Syria, but yesterday two airstrikes, both on Damascus Airport and Aleppo Airport, attributed to Israel, might make that impossible. We do not know if you will continue there. Now Israel is said to frequently target Iranian targets in Syria to really prevent weapon deliveries. Here in the North, the scene is quiet as of now. There were a few false alarms in the past, the two days really causing hundreds and thousands of residents here into their shelters. The streets are pretty much empty. People make sure to stay close to their homes. But as of now, it is quiet here. Now both Iran and also just recently, Hassan Nasrullah and Hezbollah have threatened to attack Israel. Nasrullah just after the Hamas operation began on Saturday said that this was an attempt to prevent further Israeli normalization in the region has hailed this operation. So residents here and also the Israeli security system, many reservists have been deployed to the North. The Israeli aerial defense systems are very much finely tuned to monitor any kind of infiltration in Israeli airspace. They know that an escalation here in the North could bring into Israel into unknown waters, not knowing what kind of militias would participate. But again, Nicole, we haven't had any alarms here in the North as of today. Yesterday there were a few false alarms, but people here are very much prepared. P.S. Tacklebox, definitely a tense calm up there. We'll continue to keep our eye on the North. Thank you. Now, I want to bring in Professor Koby Michael, who's a senior research fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies and former Deputy Director General for the Israeli Ministry of Strategic Affairs, joining us from Ness Ziona here in Israel via Zoom. Koby, let's begin with everything that's happening on Israel's northern border and the threat of Hezbollah as these high-level officials are meeting right now discussing what's happening here in Israel. Good morning. It looks that they are pretty concerned about the situation, which means that they are not so happy about the idea of opening the northern front. They are very cautious in this regard. In the very same time, they are walking till the edge, and they are trying to challenge Israel and the IDF. But I think that they have no interest right now to open in a full-scale the northern front. And I think that in the very same time, this is an Israeli interest as well, a class for the time being. It will be better for Israel to concentrate on the southern front in the Gaza Strip. But the IDF is well-prepared, and I hope that they will not force us to open the northern front. But it looks that they are concerned. Well, and meanwhile, I mean, we continue to hear a show of support from the United States, also urging Iran not to get involved. We now know US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin just landed in Israel, the second high-level US official to visit in two days. So how has the United States continued to show its support to Israel and hopefully deter other players from getting involved? It is important to understand that it is not only support or shoulder to shoulder with Israel. It is also an American interest about the broader Middle East and about its allies and its presence here and its interests in the Middle East. The American presence here in the Mediterranean is a signal, first of all, a deterrent signal towards the Iranians and Hezbollah. But in the very same time, it is a signal of support to the American allies here in the region, mainly the Saudis, the Egyptians, and some others, that says we are here and we are ready to intervene if there will be a need to intervene. And the Americans understand pretty well that the war between Israel and Hamas is not something which is limited to the local context. It's something which is much broader. It looks that the Iranians are deeply involved in this war. And the Americans are here in order to prevent Iran from deepening its involvement. Well, meanwhile, as things do continue to escalate in the south, the IDF urging more than 1 million Gazans to evacuate Gaza City and evacuate the northern territory. So how does this indicate that Israel is preparing to really step up its efforts in the Gaza Strip? Israel is making all the required preparations. It looks that there will be no option but to use the ground forces. I still don't know how exactly it will be realized, but at the end of the day, it will be realized. And the idea of the evacuation of the population has two targets. First of all, to avoid from collateral damage and to save lives of innocent people. And secondly, to prepare the zone, to prepare the area for the ground forces that will enter the Gaza Strip in the next phase. And I want to remind everyone, all of this escalation, as there are still 97 confirmed hostages, many speculate that there are dozens more. So how does that make this operation that much more difficult as there are Israeli hostages in the Gaza Strip as the IDF wants to continue this operation? It complicates the event. The state of Israel is obliged to all of the hostages. And the state of Israel will do all the possible efforts in order to release them. And the state of Israel already works on that. But in the very same time, I think that the priorities are very clear. The first priority is, first of all, to defeat Hamas. We'll eliminate all the military capacities of Hamas. Professor Kobe Michael.  I appreciate your effort. But we are getting a live feed from Daniel Higari, the IDF spokesperson. We want to take this live, as he's speaking. Take a listen. Also in the central command, the IDF is ready. On the Indar Middle East, it's ready to act anywhere where is a security interest to the state of Israel. We also hold strategic meetings with our partner, the US. And I'll speak about that later. Next to that, we continue to focus on the closer arenas. First, in the state of Israel, in the central command. I speak about the Judea and Samaria area. We're in Friday and Saturday, and we must be vigilant on the roads. We reinforce our forces. We're willing, ready to eliminate terror. We're asking the public to be responsible and listen to the instructions of the forces. We are spread out with the home front command soldiers all over the country, according to priorities. It happens from the north to Eilat. We're vigilant and on record alertness. We are ready, strong, both on defense and on offense with whatever is needed. Sometimes alerts are being triggered that is part of our readiness. Sometimes these are false alarms. We're trying to be more accurate. We prefer not to be wrong, to give an alert even if it's wrong. Even this is being improved over time. There is no change in the instructions of the home front command. But the public is asked to follow the instructions because the defense of Israel is not complete. Therefore, when you listen to the instructions of the home front command and stay in shelters, we save lives. And this reduces the damage to our population and allows us to focus on the offense, on the enemy. Yes, Secretary Austin has landed in Israel. He is in Tel Aviv now. He's being briefed by Defense Minister Yav Galant. We will be coordinated. The U.S. is our most important strategic partner. Anyone who looks at us in the Middle East sees the close cooperation between us. I want to emphasize the IDF knows by itself in the arenas that we're facing, center, south, and north, to work independently. But the coordination has an importance for deterrence in the Middle East. It has a great value for anyone who sees us. From the start of the war, we have given notices to 258 IDF soldiers who lost their lives, bereaved families who we care for at this time. We wish a speedy recovery to all the wounded in the hospitals, also civilians and soldiers alike. All members of the security forces that are taking part in the fighting areas around the Gaza Strip. It is still a battle zone. We work hard there with tens of thousands of soldiers working on the ground, searching for terrorists. There are shootouts over the past several hours. It has been quiet on the fence. Earlier, we have killed terrorists on the fence. This is still a threatened area. It is still a war zone and a closed military zone. I asked the public to listen to the instructions. Did not take unnecessary risks. We gave notices to families of 120 kidnapped. We lose sleep over this, with major efforts are dedicated to this. Itzal Alon is in charge of the intelligence operation. There are a lot of announcements on the media and also of Hamas. We will only report on concrete information. These are civilians of the state of Israel that are at the hands of a murderous terror group. Our goal is to see how we operate in order to bring them back. We enter into a tense weekend in all fronts. The fighting, IDF troops are spread all over the arenas in order to provide a response. Myself and the spokesperson unit will continue over this weekend to brief you twice a day on where things stand very accurately. I wish us all, except for the arenas and Shabbat without any security incidents. Questions, please. The IDF is instructing. We are listening to Daniel Higari, the IDF spokesperson, talking about how we continue to stay strong. However, also mentioning that, although it's been quiet on the fence, there are still active threats there in southern Israel. That's where we want to cross live to our I-24 news correspondent, Mary McOliv, who's in the Israel Gaza border near Steyrot. Mary, Daniel Higari also mentioned 120 kidnapped families have been noticed from the Israel forces. We also just referred reports from Hamas that claims 13 hostages were killed in airstrikes overnight. What can you tell us? That's right, Nicole. That's the news coming out of Gaza now. Israeli airstrikes continue there. We know they launched 750 airstrikes overnight. Those strikes have been continuing the entire morning that we've been here. We have heard these distant booms and explosions and the sounds of tank firing from afar. We talked earlier today about how we were hearing these tanks that were firing from this Gaza border community from the outside area into the Gaza Strip. And you can see some of them now behind me. These were some of the tanks that were firing. And our part of Israel's major operation to try and get ready for whatever the operation is coming, whether that's going to be a full-scale ground invasion, when there's going to be a ground invasion, all of this remains to be seen. But what we can tell you is that here in southern Israel we are seeing a massive, massive showing of Israeli forces, of Israeli heavy machinery, just like these Percona 5 tanks and many other artillery guns, heavy machine guns and many, many, many forces who have been called up to respond to the situation here and who are waiting to see what will come in the coming days. Mary McAuliffe reporting down in southern Israel. Thank you. We'll continue to keep an eye on all the latest developments happening out of there. Now I want to bring in Guy Azrael, I-24 News senior editor. Guy, we're hearing calls from Hamas calling for a day of rage around the world. And we are starting to see that instigate several reports that near the border with Jordan, protesters, approaching the Israel border. What can you tell us? Absolutely. So yesterday Hamas is issuing a call for a day of rage around the world to target both Israeli and Jewish targets. No surprise there when this radical Islamist movement is targeting Jews. This is the agenda of Hamas and ISIS-like group. And yes indeed, answering those calls, hundreds of Jordanians reportedly, and as we can see on their screens right now, marching towards the border with Israel. As far as we understand, security forces there in Jordan for now have managed to contain them or at least are trying to. But this is nothing new as well. We saw something similar two years ago during Operation Guardian of the Wall. Nonetheless, the events now are much more severe and much more volatile. Should this increase even further? And this is not the only incident that we can report on because in Beijing, staff member of the Israeli embassy has been stabbed yesterday. He is hospitalized. The background to that attack is unknown at this stage. But what we do know very well is that the Israeli Foreign Ministry has sent warnings to Israeli missions around the world and to Israeli and Jewish institutes to stay vigilant and made fear of attacks on these targets by Hamas and their supporters across the world. It's certainly something that will continue to keep an eye on for everything that is happening around the world. I want to come back to Kobe Michael joining us via Zoom. Now, Kobe, when we just heard from Daniel Hagar, the IDF spokesperson, he's talking about everything that's continuing to happen, especially heading into such a tense weekend here in Israel, continuing to say that although for the past few hours it might have been quiet on the fence, still residents need to listen to the alerts from the home front command as they continue to update everyone on the latest. I think that we are going to face some further difficult days. But the capacities of Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic jihad in the Gaza Strip are becoming, I would say, fewer and fewer, less. And I think that in the coming days we will be concentrating on the Gaza Strip and all the events will be inside the Gaza Strip and not from the Gaza Strip outside. But we still have to be alerted and we have to follow all the instructions because from time to time there might be more barrages of rockets. But it will be fewer and fewer in the coming days. Meanwhile, as we are paying attention to everything happening in the Gaza Strip, we are getting new reports as to exactly what did happen on Saturday with reports at least 2,500 terrorists were able to infiltrate during that initial breach. Reports stating about 70% affiliated with Hamas. So, Kobi, what exactly does that percentage mean? What are the other 30% of the terrorists who were able to infiltrate? I really have no good answers. There are many rumors now and many speculations about even infiltration that was from inside the state of Israel. I think that it is still early to make some conclusions in this regard. It should be investigated very carefully and very strictly. But this is the time that we have to concentrate on the other thing. We have to accomplish the mission in the Gaza Strip and we will have the time after the war to find out what exactly happened here. Maybe we will find out some surprises which are much bigger than the surprise that we are aware to right now. But I think that it will be pretty dangerous to make too many speculations right now and we have to take all our efforts and resources to concentrate on the right thing now. Exactly and some of those horrific images continue to come out of the Gaza Strip and some of the atrocities that were committed in those southern Israeli communities. In fact, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken reacting to the images that he saw. So we did see photographs, videos that the Israeli government shared with us. Some I think has actually already been seen in public media. Others were new to me and I think they are new to our team. It's hard to find the right words. It's beyond what anyone would ever want to imagine, much less actually see and God forbid experience. A baby, an infant, riddled with bullets, soldiers beheaded, young people burned alive in their cars or in their hideaway rooms. I could go on, but it's simply depravity in the worst imaginable way. Blinken describing just some of these scenes of horror that have come out of the south and so many people here in Israel continue to be impacted by this tragedy. I'm joined in studio now by Ben Vaknin, a friend of Ilan Moshe Yaakov, someone who was murdered at the Nova Music Festival in Israel's south, one of the 260 people who were murdered at that festival. Ben, you knew your friend was at the festival. Can you tell me about how you found out about the news of his death? Actually, I knew about him going to the festival just like a few hours before he went. So, me and my friends went out a night before, so we continued just like a normal Israeli-Tel Avivian guys. We went to a party, like relaxing, and we stayed late at six in the morning. I see the last video that Ilan posted on Instagram story that he said that although all the situation in the country, it loves Israel. And then we found about the horror and the attack and how massive the attack was. Basically, so from that moment, we didn't know what happened. We keep continuing hearing about people that got shot, people that exploded, murdering, slaughter. So, we understood that we were dealing with something big that we didn't deal with before. From that day on, we didn't hear about Ilan anymore. But you were constantly worried, especially after seeing the horrific scene. Obviously, as the time passed, it's delusional that what I'm about to say in that situation, we were hoping that he was kidnapped to Gaza. At least he's going to be alive. By the time we lost hope, me, at least I lost hope, until yesterday that we found out that he's dead, been murdered by Hamas, the terror. We should mention that all the time that it's a terror organization. They recognize them by DNA. So, I guess when you recognize somebody by DNA, it means that something horrible happened to him. Finding out that news, I mean, there's no good option. There's two horrific instances, whether he's in Gaza right now or whether he was killed. I mean, as I said, the first option that you mentioned that he's in Gaza was the best option. At least he's going to be alive. At least we're going to see him again. That's the, I want to say the f-word, the situation that we're in, but we are on TV, so I cannot say, but that's how... That's how exactly... That's how crazy it is that you're hoping that a dear friend of you is in Hamas, in a terror organization, and that you're hoping that he's there, that you might going to see him alive and not dead. And as this continues, we continue to see so many of these stories. How are the family members, the friends coming together? What would you want your message to be to the public? First of all, I want to say to all IDF, Mada, all the forces in Israel. Thank you, big thank you. They're doing a great job. Zaka, for evacuating all the dead bodies. It's not something that, you know, you take for granted. And all of their work continues to...  We'll continue to do that for Ilan. Ben Vaknin, thank you so much for sharing his story with us here on I-24 News. Thank you. Israel is officially in a state of war. This is a very active scene, and we need to get in the car as we're talking. Within 100 soldiers and civilians have been kidnapped. We don't want to do it. We just don't know anything. Entire families, including babies and children and elderly, were butchered in their beds. Awaken the giant, and we are ready, and we are strong. Everyone is showing up. This is the unity. This is a breaking news edition of the I-24 News Desk. I'm Nicole Zedek, live in Tel Aviv. We've entered the seventh day of war here in Israel. Over the past week, the death toll has climbed to more than 1,300 lives lost. While rocket alerts continue to blare through the south during the overnight hours, Israel is striking back in the Gaza Strip, hitting 750 military targets overnight. The IDF also recently struck five residential homes that allegedly housed members of Hamas, including the brother of Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar. Israeli military has now warned more than 1 million Gazans to head south within the next 24 hours, away from the Israel-Gaza border and evacuating from Gaza City. Israeli attacks have killed 1,500 Palestinians according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. However, that number does not distinguish between Hamas terrorists and innocent civilians. While troops are mobilizing in southern Israel, northern Israel is also preparing for attacks from the Iranian-backed Hezbollah terror group in Lebanon. The Iranian foreign minister was greeted by representatives of Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad when he landed in Beirut on Thursday. Foreign minister Hussain Amir Abdulyan had a clear threat to Israel that if the pounding in Gaza continues, the war may open on other fronts. All of this while the unrest continues inside Israel's borders, Hamas is calling on its supporters for a day of rage around the world, as Israelis and Jews abroad are urged to stay alert for violence today. Certainly a lot continues to unfold, but we want to begin with our correspondent P.S. Dagobak, who's in northern Israel right now. P.S., let's begin with the latest Iranian foreign minister in Beirut meeting with members of Hamas, the P.I.J., and now also Hezbollah chief, Hassan Nasrullah. What can you tell us? Well, they called the readout according to Lebanese media and Hezbollah affiliated channel. Amayyadine says that they meant to discuss, of course, the regional developments, the results of the Hamas, operation on Israel, and Amir Abdulian basically said that his goal of his visit to Lebanon is to keep Lebanon safe, but he also said that the continuing atrocities of Israel in Gaza might open the scene, open the war to other fronts. That's what he threatened with, and that he suggests to call it a regional meeting of regional leaders to discuss further developments. Now, we do know that it is not the first time that the Iranian foreign minister travels to Beirut to meet with exactly the Hamas leadership, the P.I.J. leadership and also Hezbollah representatives, including Hezbollah Hassan Nasrullah. Now, he was supposed to continue to Syria, but yesterday, two airstrikes, both on Damascus Airport and Aleppo Airport, attributed to Israel, might make that impossible. We do not know if you will continue there. Now, Israel is set to frequently target Iranian targets in Syria to really prevent weapon deliveries. Here in the north, the scene is quiet as of now. There were a few false alarms in the past, the two days really causing hundreds and thousands of residents here into their shelters. The streets are pretty much empty. People make sure to stay close to their homes, but as of now, it is quiet here. Now, both Iran and also just recently, Hassan Nasrullah and Hezbollah have threatened to attack Israel. Nasrullah, just after the Hamas operation began on Saturday, said that this was an attempt to prevent further Israeli normalization in the region has hailed this operation. So residents here and also the Israeli security system here, many reservists have been deployed to the north. The Israeli aerial defense systems are very much finely tuned to monitor any kind of infiltration Israeli airspace. They know that an escalation here in the north could bring into Israel into unknown waters, not knowing what kind of militias would participate. But again, Nicole, we haven't had any alarms here in the north as of today. Yesterday, there were a few false alarms, but people here are very much prepared. P.S. Tacklebox, definitely a tense calm up there. We'll continue to keep our eye on the north. Thank you. Now, I want to bring in Professor Hobi Michael, who's a senior research fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies and former Deputy Director-General for the Israeli Ministry of Strategic Affairs, joining us from Ness Ziona here in Israel via Zoom. Kobi, let's begin with everything that's happening on Israel's northern border and the threat of Hezbollah as these high-level officials are meeting right now discussing what's happening here in Israel. Good morning. It looks that they are pretty concerned about the situation, which means that they are not so happy about the idea of opening the northern front. They are very cautious in this regard. In the very same time, they are walking till the edge and they are trying to challenge Israel and the IDF, but I think that they have no interest right now to open in a full-scale northern front. And I think that in the very same time, this is an Israeli interest as well, a class for the time being. It will be better for Israel to concentrate on the southern front in the Gaza Strip, but the IDF is well-prepared. I hope that they will not force us to open the northern front, but it looks that they are concerned. Well, and meanwhile, I mean, we continue to hear a show of support from the United States, also urging Iran not to get involved. We now know U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin just landed in Israel the second high-level U.S. official to visit in two days. So how has the United States continued to show its support to Israel and hopefully deter other players from getting involved? It is important to understand that it is not only support or shoulder to shoulder with Israel. It is also an American interest about the broader Middle East and about its allies and its presence here and its interests in the Middle East. The American presence here in the Mediterranean is a signal, first of all, a deterrent signal towards the Iranians and Hezbollah, but in the very same time, it is a signal of support to the American allies here in the region, mainly the Saudis, the Egyptians and some others that says we are here and we are ready to intervene if there will be a need to intervene. And the Americans understand pretty well that the war between Israel and Hamas is not something which is limited to the local context, something which is much broader than the Iranians. It looks that the Iranians are deeply involved in this war and the Americans are here in order to prevent Iran from deepening its involvement. Meanwhile, as things do continue to escalate in the south, the IDF urging more than 1 million Gazans to evacuate Gaza City and evacuate the northern territory. So how does this indicate that Israel is preparing to really step up its efforts in the Gaza Strip? Israel is making all the required preparations. It looks that there will be no option but to use the ground forces. I still don't know how exactly it will be realized, but at the end of the day it will be realized. And the idea of the evacuation of the population has two targets. First of all, to avoid collateral damage and to save lives of innocent people. And secondly, to prepare the zone, to prepare the area for the first round for the ground forces that will enter the Gaza Strip in the next phase. And I want to remind everyone all of this escalation, as there are still 97 confirmed hostages. Many speculate that there are dozens more. So how does that make this operation that much more difficult as there are Israeli hostages in the Gaza Strip as the IDF wants to continue this operation? It complicates the event. The State of Israel is obliged to all of the hostages and the State of Israel will do all the possible efforts in order to release them. And the State of Israel already works on that. But in the very same time, I think that the priorities are very clear. The first priority is first of all to defeat Hamas will eliminate all the military capacities of Hamas. Professor Koby, Michael.  I appreciate your fair, but we are getting a live feed from Daniel Higari, the IDF Spokesperson. I'm going to take this live as he's speaking. Take a listen. Also in the Central Command the IDF is ready on the Indira Middle East is ready to act anywhere where he's a security interest to the State of Israel. We also hold strategic meetings with our partner the U.S. here. Next to that we continue to focus on the closer arenas. First in the State of Israel in the Central Command and I speak about the Judea and Samaria area. We're in Friday and Saturday and we must be vigilant on the roads. We reinforce our forces. We're willing, ready to eliminate terror. And listen to the instructions of the forces. We are spread out with the Home Front Command soldiers all over the country according to priorities. It happens from the north to Eilat where vigilant and record alertness is wrong both on defense and on offense with whatever is needed. Sometimes alerts are being triggered that is part of our readiness. Sometimes these are false alarms. We're trying to be more accurate. We prefer not to be wrong to give an alert even if it's wrong. Even this is being improved over and over again. The public is asked to follow the instructions because the defense of Israel is not complete. Therefore when you listen to the instructions of the Home Front Command and stay in shelters we save lives. And this reduces the damage to our defense on the enemy. Your Secretary Austin has landed in Israel. He is in Tel Aviv now. He's being briefed by Defense Minister Yav Galant. We will be coordinated. The U.S. is our most important strategic partner who looks at us and sees the close cooperation between us. I want to emphasize the IDF knows by itself in the arenas that we're facing center, south and north to work independently. But the coordination has an importance for deterrence in the Middle East. It has a great value for anyone who sees us. From the start of the war we have given notices to 258 IDF soldiers who lost their lives, bereaved families who we care for at this time. We wish a speedy recovery to all the wounded in the hospitals, also civilians and soldiers alike. All members of the security forces that are taking part in the fighting areas around the Gaza Strip. It is still a battle zone. We work hard there with tens of thousands of soldiers working on the ground searching for terrorists. There are shootouts over the past several hours. It has been quiet on the fence. This is still a threatened area. It is still a war zone and a closed military zone. I ask the public to listen to the instructions. Do not take unnecessary risks. We gave notices to families of 120 kidnapped. We lose sleep over this with major efforts that are dedicated to this. Itzan Alon is in charge of the intelligence operation. There are a lot of announcements on the media and also of Hamas. We will only report on concrete information. These are civilians of the State of Israel that are at the hands of a murderous terror group. Our goal is to see how we operate in order to bring them back. We enter into a tense weekend and all fronts. The fighting, IDF troops are spread all over the arenas in order to provide a response. Myself and the Spokesperson Unit will continue over this weekend to brief you twice a day on where things stand very accurately. I wish us all except for the arenas and Shabbat without any security incidents. Questions please. The IDF is instructing listening to Daniel Higari the IDF Spokesperson talking about how we continue to stay strong, however also mentioning that although it's been quiet on the fence there are still active threats there in southern Israel. That's where we want to cross live to our I-24 news correspondent Mary McOliv Daniel Higari also mentioned 120 kidnapped families have been noticed from the Israel forces. We also just heard reports from Hamas that claims 13 hostages were killed in airstrikes overnight. What can you tell us? That's right, Nicole. That's the news coming out of Gaza now Israeli airstrikes continue there. We know they launched some 750 airstrikes overnight. Those strikes have been continuing the entire morning that we've been here. We have heard these distant booms and explosions and the sounds of tank firing from afar. We talked earlier today about how we were hearing these tanks that were firing from this Gaza border community from the outside area into the Gaza Strip and you can see some of them now behind me. These were some of the tanks that were firing in our part of Israel's major operation to try and get ready for whatever kind of invasion. When there's going to be a ground invasion, all of this remains to be seen. But what we can tell you is that here in southern Israel we are seeing a massive, massive showing of Israeli forces of Israeli heavy machinery just like these for five to five tanks. And many other artillery guns, heavy machine guns and many, many, many forces who have been called up to respond to the situation here and we're waiting to see what will happen in Israel. Thank you. We'll continue to keep an eye on all the latest developments happening out of there. Now I want to bring in Guy Azrael, I-24 News, senior editor Guy. We're hearing calls from Hamas calling for a day of rage around the world and we are starting to see that instigate several reports that near the border with Jordan protesters approaching the Israel border. What can you tell us? Absolutely. So yesterday Hamas called to target both Israeli and Jewish targets. No surprise there when this radical Islamist movement is targeting Jews. This is the agenda of Hamas and ISIS like a group and yes indeed answering those calls, hundreds of Jordanians reportedly and as we can see on their screens right now marching towards the border with Israel as far as we understand security forces there in Jordan for now have managed to contain them or at least are trying to but this is nothing new as well. We saw something similar two years ago during Operation Guardian of the Wall nonetheless the events now are much more severe much more volatile should this increase even further and this is not the only incident that we can report on because in Beijing staff member of the Israeli embassy has been stabbed yesterday he is hospitalized the background to that attack is unknown at this stage but what we do know very well is that the Israeli Foreign Ministry has sent warnings to Israeli missions around the world and to Israeli and Jewish institutes to stay vigilant amid fear of attacks on these targets by Hamas and their hostilities across the world. It's certainly that something that will continue to keep an eye on for everything that is happening around the world I want to come back to Kobe Michael joining us via zoom now Kobe when we just heard from Daniel Higari the IDF spokesperson he's talking about everything that continuing to happen especially heading into such a tense weekend here in Israel continuing to say that although for the past few hours it might have been quiet on the fence still residents need to listen to the alerts from the home front command as they continue to update everyone on the latest I think that we are going to face some further difficult days but the capacities of Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic jihad in the Gaza Strip are becoming I would say fewer and fewer and I think that in the coming days we will be concentrating on the Gaza Strip and all the events will be inside the Gaza Strip and not from the Gaza Strip outside but we still have to be alerted and we have to follow all the instructions because from time to time there might be more barrages of rockets but it will be fewer and fewer in the coming days meanwhile as we are paying attention to everything happening in the Gaza Strip we are getting new reports exactly what did happen on Saturday with reports at least 2,500 terrorists were able to infiltrate during that initial breach about 70% affiliated with Hamas so Kobe what exactly does that percentage mean what are the other 30% of the terrorists who were able to infiltrate I really have no good answers there are many rumors now many speculations about even infiltration that was from inside the state of Israel I think that it is still early to to make some conclusions in this regard it should be investigated very carefully very strictly but this is the time that we have to concentrate on the other thing we have to accomplish the mission in the Gaza Strip and we will have the time after the war to find out what exactly happened here maybe we will find out some surprises which are much bigger than the surprise that we are aware to right now but I think that it will be pretty dangerous to make too many speculations right now and we have to continue to see all our efforts and resources to concentrate on the right thing now exactly and some of those horrific images continue to come out of the Gaza Strip and some of the atrocities that were committed in those southern Israeli communities in fact US Secretary of State Antony Blinken reacting to the images that he saw so we did see photographs videos that the Israeli government shared with us some I think is actually already been seen in public media others were new to me and I think new to our team it's hard to find the right words it's beyond what anyone would ever want to imagine much less actually see and God forbid experience a baby an infant riddled with bullets soldiers beheaded young people burned alive in their cars or in their hideaway rooms I could go on but it's simply depravity in the worst imaginable way Blinken describing just some of these scenes of horror that have come out of the south and so many people here in Israel continue to be impacted by this tragedy I'm joined in studio now by Ben Vaknin a friend of Ilan Moshe Yaakov someone who was murdered at the Nova Music Festival in Israel south one of the 260 people who were murdered at that festival Ben you knew your friend was at the festival can you tell me about like how you how you found out about the news of his death actually he knew about him going to the festival just like few hours before he went so me and my friends went out a night before so we continue like just like a normal Israeli television guys we went to party like relaxing and we stayed late at six in the morning I see the last video that Ilan posted on Instagram story that he said that although all the situation in the country he loves the he loves Israel and then we found about the horror and that tech and how massive that tech was basically so in that moment we didn't know what happened we keep continue hearing about people that got shot people that explode murdering slaughter so we understood that we have we dealing with something big that we didn't deal before from that day on we didn't hear about Ilan anymore but you were constantly worried especially after seeing the horrific obviously obviously as the time passed we were it's delusional that what I'm about to say that in that situation like that is kidnapping that he was kidnapped to Gaza at least he's going to be alive by the time we we lost hope me at least I lost hope until the yesterday that we found out that he's dead been murdered by Hamas the terror we should mention that all the time that it's a terror organization they recognize them by DNA so I guess when you recognize somebody by DNA it means that something like horrible happened to him finding out that news I mean I know there's no good option there's two horrific instances in Gaza right now or whether he was killed I mean as I said the first option that you mentioned that is in Gaza was the best option at least he's going to be alive at least we're going to see him again that's I want to say the F word the situation that we in on TV so I cannot say but that's how exactly that's how crazy it is that you open that a dear friend of you is in Hamas in a terror organization and that you open that is there that you might going to see him alive and not dead and as this continues we continue to see stories how are the family members the friends coming together what would you want your message to be to the public first of all I want to say to the all IDF Mada all the forces in Israel thank you big thank you they doing a great job Zaka for evacuating all the bodies it's not something that you take for granted it's and all of their work continues if I can give a message Ilan would want people to smile and be happy and we'll continue to do that for Ilan thank you so much for sharing his story with us here on I24 news thank you over 1300 casualties and over 3000 injuries and the toll keeps climbing we bring you the testimonies from the front line from those who managed to survive in the most graphic brutal images so the whole world can see what Hamas did follow us as Israel battles a terror threat emanating from the south and the north join I24 news for the real story of what's going on a breaking news edition of the I24 news desk live in Tel Aviv we've entered the 7th day of war here in Israel over the past week the death toll has climbed to more than 1300 lives lost rocket alerts continue to flare through the south with more than 100 rockets launched toward Israel in the past hour Israel is striking back in the Gaza Strip hitting 750 military targets over night Israeli military has now warned more than one million Gazans to head south within the next 24 hours away from the Israel-Gaza border and evacuating from Gaza city Israeli attacks have killed 1500 Palestinians according to the Palestinian health ministry however that number does not distinguish between Hamas terrorists and innocent civilians while troops are mobilizing in southern Israel preparing for attacks from the Iranian backed Hezbollah terror group in Lebanon the Iranian foreign minister was greeted by representatives of Hamas the Palestinian Islamic jihad and recently met with Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrullah as Iran warns the war may open on other fronts while the unrest continues inside Israel's border Hamas is calling on its supporters for a day of rage around the world for violence today meanwhile US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has landed in Israel and is expected to hold a joint press conference with Defense Minister Joab Galant any minute now a lot to break down on these ever-developing situations but we begin in southern Israel where I-24 News correspondent Mary McOliffe is on the Israel-Gaza border Mary after more than 10 hours of silence in the south it's once again a red alert 100 rockets launched towards the south in the past hour what did you experience that's right Nicole so here where we are which is right just outside of stroke we are not hearing a lot of those rocket siren warnings they're in areas further concentrated north or in areas just generally around us but what we are hearing is the sounds of constant Israeli military strikes into the Gaza Strip including those from those machinery that you can see just behind me these are self-propelled howitzers which can fire 13 miles inside the Gaza Strip and we've seen in the past hour we've seen just continuous firing from some of this heavy machinery behind me I'll step out of the way so Daniel can show you exactly the scene that's going on here we can see heavy Israeli forces all along in these small little bunkers all of them pointed inside the Gaza Strip where we do continue to hear reports of strikes inside the Strip and the IDF continuing to say that it will continue its operation and continues to warn the civilians in northern Gaza to evacuate from the area because they are about to launch extensive strikes in the region in the area of the Gaza Strip and they want to try and do what they can what they're saying to try and safeguard civilians from these attacks which are about to only intensify and we can certainly feel here in the south that things are rapidly intensifying Mary McAuliffe 24 news correspondent we're going to continue to keep our eye down there in the south as everybody does continue to develop thank you now I want to bring in our guests in studio I'm joined by retired colonel Dr. Jack Naria former deputy head of assessment for the Israeli military intelligence and former foreign policy advisor to prime minister Yitzhak Rabin plus guy Israel I-24 news senior editor let's start with you Jack because as we're continuing to hear about the IDF tactics warning one million Gazans to evacuate to flee from Gaza city and the north they are continuing to urge civilians to get to safety however Hamas is telling them the opposite Hamas definitely is doing the opposite I mean he's using this population as a human shield we know for sure that tunnels are dug under the houses we know of shelters and tunnels that are a city underground city that lives there and serves the Hamas leadership the Hamas the military command so it is very easy for them to ask the population to stay on the ground because for us would be aiming and killing the civilians and so we are just behaving according to the rules of engagement international rules of engagement goes into the rules of war we are just warning the population and give them enough time to just leave the place they could come back later but then by leaving the place we face directly the Hamas the Hamas terrorists and I think this is what we want and we don't want to annihilate a total population we don't want this population to go into Egypt we are not our intention is not to populate the Sinai peninsula this is not the case we want them just to go and to put themselves in a safe place where they would be under international even the UN supervision so that to leave the area where the battles are going to be held however we know that some people who can't evacuate are the hostages now is really confirming at least 120 hostages still being held in the Gaza Strip how does this increased activity from Israel side impact that hostages concerning the hostages there are lots of rumors that are going on that one of the rumors is that maybe 50% of those hostages are not living right now and Hamas propaganda only a few minutes ago said that 16 of these hostages has been killed because of Israeli bombardments so this is a very sensitive issue and I think that we should concentrate here on the main priority our main priority is to eradicate Hamas and that's it we have to just eliminate all the collateral noises because if we do take that into consideration it will completely paralyze us meanwhile we're hearing more information red alerts siren through Ashkelon right now we continue to be bombarded with rockets more than 100 fired towards the south within the past hour continuing now but most of the residents in these southern cities not Ashkelon however instead of where our correspondent is they have evacuated well they have evacuated and the government has also asked the inhabitants of Sderot to evacuate also and I'll tell you the calculation is very simple Sderot is about 850 meters from the border with Gaza it is in full range of mortars so it's even worse than rockets because mortars you don't hear them firing just hear them when they just arrive so you have barely one second or two seconds just to take shelter and this is the reason and then instead of deploying and trying to protect the Sderot I mean the army has other missions in life and certainly the mission of fighting Hamas Hamas at this point in time and this is I mean the fact that all the population has been evacuated facilitates the task of the Israeli army of course Sderot is a city of almost 30,000 residents so if the instruction has been given to evacuate them that is a lot of people that need to be accommodated in the center that is in addition to the smaller communities those kibbutzes that were most most devastated by this attack sometimes entire communities eliminated those who survived have already fled Ashkelon is a much bigger city it's a much more complex operation to vacate the size of Ashkelon I don't think we will see an order of that sort but the reality is that many civilians without being instructed are taking initiative and seeking refuge because the situation is dangerous Ashkelon is used to rocket fire but over the past week there have been live bullets live shots being fired on the streets infiltrating out of the Gaza Strip that is a much greater threat than that of the rockets that of course are very dangerous but you can hide in a shelter and most likely you will be okay that is not the case as we saw when these brutal terrorists attempt to infiltrate homes and slaughter people innocent civilians obviously people want to stay away from those areas certainly most of the action right now as we can continue to get these red alerts but Israel also preparing for anything that could at any moment escalate in the north as well and that's where our correspondent P.S. Tekelback is right now in northern Israel the Iranian Foreign Minister in Beirut meeting with members of Hamas the P.I.J. also Hezbollah Chief Hassan Nasrullah what can you tell us about these these meetings and how it could potentially add to any escalation on the northern front well Nikola meeting that certainly does surprise the Iranian Foreign Minister has met with representatives of Hamas the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah before also leading up to that escalation we are seeing now according to a readout reportedly he said that his goal to come to Lebanon was to maintain calm in Lebanon but that he says that Netanyahu Israeli Prime Minister is responsible for that recent escalation the Hamas attacks for what he called quote the cramps of the occupation Gaza first and foremost and he warned that the continuous atrocities of Israel and Gaza could lead to other fronts joining the war this is what the Israeli defense establishment but also residents here are afraid of we do not see a lot of people here in the streets also yesterday the streets were very very quiet we haven't seen any alert throughout the night also today not so it is a tense calm but it is calm as of now residents as I said stay close to their homes we have seen quite a lot of Israeli presidents also yesterday and there were a few false alarms triggered yesterday one in the major area of the city of Kiryat Shmone before that the day before false alarm sending hundreds of thousands into shelters here in northern Israel that really shows you how finely tuned the Israeli aerial defense alerts are and how much on edge the Israeli defense establishment is but also residents here are prepared for anything as of now we are hearing reports that the Lebanese state is setting up more more checkpoints to really prevent demonstrators from flocking to the border as we've seen for example in Jordan as of now as Hamas is calling for a day of jihad so that might be an indication that the Lebanese state is not interested in any escalation as Bala might be as it has also in the wake of the recent escalation said that they are on the side of Hamas they have recently called to attack Israel this is it has been quiet here at the border but of course residents are very vigilant and that could change at any minute as of now we haven't had any alerts since yesterday evening Our correspondent Pia Steccoback thank you for bringing us all the latest up there on our northern front we appreciate it now Pia mentioned something about just the day of rage that Hamas has has urged from everyone abroad and guy we've seen now some attacks specifically in Beijing what can you tell us about what you've seen Yes as far as that incident in Beijing the circumstances of that are still being investigated what we do know is that a staff member of the Israeli embassy has been stabbed in the face in a shopping center yesterday the circumstances as I said are being examined but the timing here obviously is very suspicious the Israeli foreign ministry yesterday issuing a warning to Israeli missions and to Israeli and Jewish institutions to be very vigilant ahead of this day of rage as Hamas has been calling to hurt to hurt both Israeli and Jewish institutions across the world and unfortunately as we saw this week Hamas has many supporters on the streets of many major cities around the world and as we continue to show these different images that are coming out of here and hearing some eyewitnesses from people in those southern communities do you think that the international response has been enough I know we've seen it on the government from the public front it's very divided obviously first we'll have to say that the U.S. response most of the western response has been extremely encouraging for Israel both in terms of the moral the the fact the mere fact that they are showing their solidarity the fact that both Blinken and Austin are here the German foreign ministers on their way here now that is very important also the British foreign ministers already travel to Israel earlier this week that is a great show of solidarity I think the west has a problem the west has a problem if within it there are such major groups that support a murderous terrorist organization like Hamas like ISIS on their home soils obviously the threat of radical Islam is not limited to Israel it is not limited to the U.S. and I think that many people around the world should be aware of that problem if they enable and we know that in some places those protests have been banned if they enable the growth of terror supporters in their countries that is an issue that they will have to deal with later on for now this is a major threat for Israel a threat that Israel cannot allow to continue the people of Israel will not settle for anything less than destroying Hamas destroying their capabilities the trauma that we experience this week here in Israel cannot return otherwise the state of Israel has no right to exist the constant support that we are receiving from the United States that Israel is receiving from the United States you have to just make a difference between the official support and what's going on on the ground and the pockets of those who hate us our host time to Israel is still there and they are very active and you can see that on the on the web and every site on the media and enough to see some of the interviews between the in several programs in the states with some officials or former officials in Israel like the Prime Minister Bennett to see to understand that there is a deep hate against the state of Israel and that they do not accept the fact that Israel has the right to survive and to fight as in self defense well there is so much happening and we talk about just the right to self defense and the defense of the civilians that were are under danger and we actually want to cross to some of those residents who had to evacuate from Eivry and Ahuva Eivry Adanani now you just recently evacuated you're joining us via zoom from the Dead Sea area when were you able to evacuate and what was it like for these past nearly a week now good morning to all the listeners thanks for allowing us to tell our story we left on Wednesday this week the fifth day I think it was the fighting for the first 60 hours we did not leave our house at all we had our doors locked occasionally opening the windows and the balcony just to see anything but there was all the uncertainty that we dealt with of having armed terrorists fire from the house numerous rocket attacks and having to jump to the safe room I actually just am a little shocked if you could repeat the rest of the question about getting out to the city I understand thank you so much for joining with us I mean being locked inside your house for five days I know well many of your friends families were they able to evacuate as well yes most of our first of all we're at the dead see now with a lot of my wife's extended family my family and any of whom live other parts of Stero but we were able to get out there's a ministry of welfare initiative to leave and be put up for now indefinitely at Dead Sea Hotels free of charge to have a little bit of rest and relaxation after a very chaotic five days just a small nuance is the only time we were able to go out in the last five days was the window where they opened grocery stores I think it was on Monday on the third day of the fighting and even then me and my brother-in-law getting groceries for the family because we're running low on supplies I had a rocket attack hit near the Romney-Levy supermarket in Stay Road maybe 15 meters within while we were at the cash register we continue to see these scenes of devastation in Stay Road I know you're evacuated you're safe for now but this is your home to look like when you are able to return we're really hoping to return there we bought a house there we intend to have a family there God willing this is our home we like the area we like the people we just want to have the confidence in our government and society that the threat will be permanently removed from Gaza I don't want to speculate we don't want to speculate what that will look like in terms of military policy and everything afterwards but Hamas needs to be fully destroyed and that's shared by everyone in our city and our family who lives in Stay Road one meanwhile as we're speaking we continue to get those red alerts in the south continuing to target those southern communities so even for to be able to evacuate right now I know it was difficult just to be able to leave for your safety also well still possible active terrorists in the area are you surprised that it took five days for the Israeli army the military to be able to let you leave after that time well just to clarify there were other people that left a few maybe by the third day after the lockdowns of staying at home or lifted but many people were wavering because there's all this uncertainty we don't know how long this conflict will go on a lot of us have it's not just not easy to take all your possessions to not know when you're going to be able to come back and you might have to go we don't know how long we'll be here at the Dead Sea maybe we'll have to go somewhere else and it just there's a lot of uncertainty we don't necessarily look at it even as the government's angle we got a lot of offers from friends and family to go to apartments that were available or you she votes or community centers and other cities and we're just happy that we're out now can get rest and relaxation and all of our family that we're living in steroid are also elsewhere in Israel and you mentioned just the support that you are getting I think that's one of the main messages that so many people are seeing the support of the community and the entire country of Israel really coming together right now have you felt that that support for the residents in the south? Yeah, we felt very support and a lot of people they tried to help us and even me like my friend, mom's friend, family it does come over we have like a free apartment or you can stay with us we got a support from a lot of people and so we're very happy to have you here today. Thank you so much for joining us sharing your story the same impact that so many of those residents in the south are experiencing but we are happy to hear that you are now safe in the Dead Sea and enjoying some much needed relaxation as you're saying thank you for joining us now I want to come back in studio we continue to be hearing these red alerts happening in the south continuing to show overnight there was a relative calm but that doesn't seem to be the case anymore not surprising to anyone. I don't want to be misunderstood but I think that the worst is not behind us the worst is definitely in front of us in all two areas in the north in front and the southern front in the southern front we know already what could be the cost but we know how to behave we don't know how to confront Iran because this is what we are talking about the fact that the Iran Foreign Minister has visited Lebanon is in order to say to Hezbollah, Hassan Asrallah to Hamas and to Islamic Jihad what would be the parameters of Iranian involvement and according to the declaration that he gave after the meeting you could understand his insinuation that according to certain developments Iran would intervene. This is why the Americans have understood that very quickly and the task force is here not to fight on the ground with Israel but to intercept ballistic missiles that might be fired from Iran ballistic missiles that could be fired from Iraq and from deep inside Lebanon so this is what it's all about. The question is when this would happen would it happen when as Hezbollah says that he has a red line and the red line is the ground incursion of Israel or would it be when they would understand that Hamas is on the verge of complete eradication and then it would be too late for them to begin the war but this is why I mean they already lost the surprise effect. This one was supposed to be synchronized with an attack imagine for a moment an attack from the north and from the south at the same hour on Saturday this would have been not a disaster but a collapse of the entire war system in Israel. So this has been lost to Hezbollah. What is left for Hezbollah is the tactical surprise either by drones or either by attacking the war or even initiating attacks from the sea or against oil rigs. This is something that could happen and of course I mean all this would be backed by a severe barrage of missiles 130,000 missiles that they have in their hands this would create havoc in Israel and this is a dimension that we don't know right now and we have to prepare ourselves for that. In the meantime we are on the defensive and as your correspondent said the nerves are on the edge. We feel that the commanders on the ground do not take any risk and whatever the little dart they have they just fire a missile they just send a patrol and we do not forget that since the beginning of this war we have already four soldiers killed on the northern front.  Meanwhile even as we are sitting here we are expecting a joint press conference from US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin with Defense Minister Joav Gond continuing to show that support so the United States urging Iran not to get involved but what does Iran really have to lose if they do get involved? Well the Iranians are not afraid of the Americans because they are locked, it is frozen for a lot of time and they will continue for years to negotiate on the hostages and so on. For six hostages they got 6 billion dollars and the monies in Korea and other places have been unfrozen. We know that after Soleimani Iran fired more than 100 missiles that hit an American air base and there are 200 or 300 Americans that were in shock and they were in trauma. So the Iranians feel that their country which has sustained a war of 10 years facing Iraq and losing a million soldiers can easily face Israel. So and then from the deep territory where they are what could Israel do? How many planes can Israel have without an American help? So this task is left for the Americans. This task has to be left to the Americans and we have to concentrate on what's happening in our area. That's what we will continue to hear especially as we are waiting from that joint press conference. Guy, quickly, anything new that you could expect from out of this? First of all the barrage of rockets continues mainly towards Ashkelon also slightly further up north near the center, near the area of Rechovot for those familiar with the geography. It is to be expected also we need to remember. Air bases? For sure. Without disclosing the information I'm sure the Hamas knows very well the locations of Israeli military bases. Hamas has already fired many thousands of rockets in this escalation. I'm not sure how many does it have left according to the estimates of some of the security sources? Let's say that 50% of their potential has been already fired. And Israel bombards there are a lot so hopefully at least on that front it will be slowing down. Stay up with the latest Dr. Jack Naria, Guy Azrael thank you for breaking down all the latest here on the breaking news edition of the I-24 News Desk. Thank you. Israel is officially in a state of war. This is a very active scene and we need to get in the car as we're talking. Within 100 soldiers and civilians have been kidnapped. We just don't know anything. Entire families including babies and children and elderly were butchered in their beds. Awaken the giant we are ready and we are strong. Everyone is showing up. This is the unity. Those who manage to survive for the real story. This is a breaking news edition of the I-24 News Desk. I'm Nicole Zettick live in Tel Aviv. We've entered the seventh day of war here in Israel. Over the past week, the death toll has climbed to more than 1300 lives lost. Rocket alerts continue to flare through the south with more than 100 rockets launched toward Israel in the past hour. Israel is striking back in the Gaza Strip hitting 750 military targets overnight. Israeli military has now warned more than 1 million Gazans to head south within the next 24 hours away from the Israel-Gaza border and evacuating from Gaza City. Israeli attacks have killed 1500 Palestinians according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. However, that number does not distinguish between Hamas terrorists while troops are mobilizing in southern Israel. Northern Israel is also preparing for attacks from the Iranian-backed Hezbollah terror group in Lebanon. The Iranian Foreign Minister was greeted by representatives of Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and recently met with Hezbollah Chief Hassan Nasrullah as Iran warns the war may open on other fronts. While the unrest continues inside Israel's borders, Hamas is calling on its supporters to make a way of rage around the world. As Israelis and Jews abroad are urged to stay alert for violence today. Meanwhile, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has landed in Israel and is expected to hold a joint press conference with Defense Minister Joab Galant any minute now. A lot to break down on these ever-developing situations, but we begin in southern Israel where I-24 News correspondent Mary McOliff is on the Israel-Gaza Strip. Mary, after more than 10 hours of silence in the south, it's once again under red alert. 100 rockets launched towards the south in the past hour. What did you experience? That's right, Nicole. So here where we are, which is right just outside of Stroat, we are not hearing a lot of those rocket-siring warnings. They're in areas further concentrated north, or in areas just generally around us. But what we are hearing is the sounds of lightning that you can see just behind me. These are self-propelled howitzers which can fire 13 miles inside the Gaza Strip. And we've seen in the past hour, we've seen just continuous firing from some of this heavy machinery behind me. I'll step out of the way so Daniel can show you exactly the scene that's going on here. We can see heavy Israeli forces all along in these small little bunkers. All of them pointed inside the Gaza Strip where we do continue to hear reports of strikes inside the Strip and continue its operation and continues to warn the civilians in northern Gaza to evacuate from the area because they are about to launch extensive strikes in the region, in the area of the Gaza Strip. And they want to try and do what they can, what they're saying to try and safeguard civilians from these attacks which are about to only intensify. And we can certainly feel here in the south that things are rapidly intensifying. Mary McAuliffe, 24 news correspondent. We're going to continue to keep our eye on the south as everybody does continue to develop. Thank you. Now, I want to bring in our guests in studio. I'm joined by retired colonel Dr. Jack Naria, former deputy head of assessment for the Israeli military intelligence and former foreign policy advisor to Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin plus Guy Azrael, I-24 news senior editor. Let's start with you, Jack, because as we're continuing to hear about the IDF's tactics, warning one million Gazans to evacuate to flee from Gaza City and the north, they are continuing to urge civilians to get to safety. However, Hamas is telling them the opposite. Well, Hamas definitely is doing the opposite.  We know for sure that tunnels are dug under under the houses. We know of shelters and tunnels that are a city, underground city that lives there and serves the Hamas leadership, the Hamas military command. So it is very easy for them to ask the population to stay on the ground, because for us we'd be aiming and killing the civilians. And so we are just behaving according to the rules of engagement, international rules of engagement comes into the rules of war. We are just warning the population and give them enough time to just leave the place. They could come back later. But then by leaving the place, we would face directly the Hamas terrorists. And I think this is what we want. And we don't want to annihilate a total population. We don't want this population to go into Egypt. We are not our intention is not to populate the Sinai peninsula. This is not the case. We want them just to go and to put themselves in a safe place where they would be under international even the UN supervision. So that to leave the area where the battles are going to be to be held. However, we know that some people who can't evacuate are the hostages. Now is really confirming at least 120 hostages still being held in the Gaza Strip. How does this increased activity from Israel side impact that hostages? Concerning the hostages, there are lots of things going on that one of the rumors is that maybe 50% of those hostages are not living right now. And problem only a few minutes ago said that 16 of these hostages has been killed because of Israeli bombardments. So this is a very sensitive issue and I think that we should concentrate here on the main the main priority. Our main priority is to eradicate Hamas. And that's it. We have to just eliminate all the collateral noises because if we do take that into consideration it will completely paralyze us. Meanwhile we're hearing more information red alerts siren through Ashkelon right now we continue to be bombarded with rockets more than 100 fired towards the south within the past hour continuing now. But most of the residents in these southern cities not Ashkelon however and they wrote where our correspondent is and they have evacuated. Well they have evacuated and the government has also asked the inhabitants of Sderot to evacuate also. And I'll tell you that the calculation is very simple. Sderot is about 850 meters from the border with Gaza. It's in full range of mortars. So it's even worse than rockets because mortars you don't hear them so you have barely one second or two seconds just to take shelter and this is the reason and then instead of deploying and trying to protect Sderot I mean the army has other missions in life and certainly the mission of fighting Hamas at this point in time and this is I mean the fact that all the population has been evacuated facilitates the task of the Israeli army. Of course Sderot is a city of almost 30,000 residents so if the instruction has been given to evacuate them that is a lot of people that need to be accommodated in the center that is in addition to the smaller communities those kibbutzes that were most most devastated by this attack sometimes entire communities eliminated those who survived have already fled. Ashkelon is a much bigger city it's a much more complex operation to vacate the city of the size of Ashkelon. I don't think we will see an order of that sort but the reality is that many civilians without being instructed are taking initiative and seeking refuge because the situation is dangerous Ashkelon is used to rocket fire but over the past week there have been live bullets live shots being fired on the streets of Ashkelon by terrorists infiltrating out of the Gaza Strip that is a much greater threat than that of the rockets that of course are very dangerous but you can hide in a shelter and most likely you will be okay that is not the case as we saw when these brutal terrorists attempt to infiltrate homes and slaughter people innocent civilians obviously not only most of the action right now as we can continue to get these red alerts is happening in the south but Israel also preparing for anything that could at any moment escalate in the north as well and that's where our correspondent P.S. Deckelback is right now in northern Israel via the Iranian Foreign Minister in Beirut meeting with members of Hamas the P.I.J also Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrullah what can you tell us about these meetings and how it could potentially add to any on the northern front well Nikola meeting that certainly does not come as a surprise the Iranian Foreign Minister has met with representatives of Hamas and Hezbollah before also leading up to that escalation we are seeing now according to a readout reportedly he said that his goal to come to Lebanon was to maintain calm in Lebanon but that he says that Netanyahu Israeli Prime Minister is responsible for escalation the Hamas attacks for what he called quote the crimes of the occupation in Gaza first and foremost and he warned that the continuous atrocities of Israel and Gaza could lead to other fronts joining the war this is what the Israeli defense establishment but also residents here are afraid of we do not see a lot of people here in the streets also yesterday the streets were very very quiet we haven't seen any alert throughout the night also today not so it is a tense calm of now residents as I said stay close to their homes we have seen quite a lot of army presidents also