its scale and brutality, and still a very active front this hour with security forces struggling to regain any semblance of control around the Gaza Strip, what's now thought to be perhaps a thousand heavily armed, coordinated Hamas terrorists invaded Israel since Saturday morning, surprise attack, over land, by sea, by air, and apparently by tunnel as well. And among Israel's southern residents, families who believed, who were convinced by our authorities over many years that it was relatively safe to live there, their death toll has grown to the point where there's no previous terror attack or massacre, no previous war in the history of Israel to grasp at for comparison with at least 700 confirmed dead civilians, more than 100 people of all ages. We're talking grandparents, toddlers dragged into Hamas captivity inside Gaza and the soldier toll climbing by the hour. Make no mistake, this is a disaster of historical proportions for the Jewish people. It's a pivotal moment as well for the young state of Israel. The war has just begun. There's hundreds of thousands of IDF reserves from the entire country, leaving families behind, have already geared up to join the fight to regain control of the southern part of Israel, and eventually embark on whatever comes next. But here's the latest from our defense minister, Galand. We are setting a siege in this city, no energy, no food, no water, no fuel, all of this closed. We are fighting against animals and we are acting accordingly. I'm going to get more into the situation. We're joined in the studio here by IDF Reserve Colonel Grisha Yokoboch, former head of the civilian department of Kogat. That's the IDF Israeli-Palestinian relations department here up to the liaison. You know the system around the Gaza border well and probably with a lot of secret information about how it used to function down there. Look, I got to start just based on how it looks. The glaring lack of information from our own sources, I think pretty much everything we know has come from Hamas at this point on the fighting and what's happened. There's been virtually no guidance provided to the public. I don't think there's been any question or answer session provided by a real authority. Is our entire security apparatus and chaos at this point, what's your read? What are we watching? I'm almost sure that the chaos was Saturday. Okay. Since then, yeah, it's a failure. Let's put it aside. As I said, let's be focused on the war and winning the war. Now, since two days ago, I think since Saturday evening, we changed the mode. I think that the idea of the government officer, the state officer needs to change the mode. It's to change the models of randoms. It's more than just to understand it, it to digest it and immediately being prepared for the next action. Now, let's not forget, the failure is intelligence. So what do you expect us, the state of Israel, the idea of to play to the hands of Hamas again? So I'm sure that the, let's say, the lack of knowledge that we have is a decision taken at the IDF that we will not help them to understand what is our situation, what we are about to do. Well, I can understand when it comes to not, you know, a rash invasion of the strip, why they be holding off on that. But we're looking back on what's taken the last 48 hours or so. Why all day Saturday? Were there no aircraft in the skies over these communities? Why are we watching class terrorists on their cell phones running amok with no threat overhead for six, eight hours? Is there been an explanation provided yet? I'm sure that there will be an explanation to that. And as I said, and it's difficult. It's really personally difficult to me as a retired colonel from the IDF to say something like that. It's a failure. It's a humiliating moment for all of us. It's a failure. Okay. It will be checked. It will be discussed. It will be we will need to study it. Okay. In our history like the young people war. But please, let's put it aside. We need to be focused on the next steps. And the next step is not to provide information to our enemies. Now, the most simple tool that they also have is this tool, right? Okay, they kidnaped us 100 is watching our news channels to figure out. Hey, exactly what what may be happening more than that. What's up groups? How many people that were kidnapped by Hamas that are part of a bigger WhatsApp group, you know, you know, soldiers in the reserve, other groups of the Moshevin kibbutz that they send the messages saying the officers, right? Right? Okay. And sometimes we share too much information. And let's not forget, if we do that, they actually know exactly what we are about to do. So it's about time that in Israel, we stop sharing information in those in this device. It's good. It's excellent. This is my this is my business. It's all here. But we need to change our way of thinking. I think there's a lot of changes to come around this. We'll discuss this a lot more in death. Grisha, I got to jump to our correspondent, Nicole said it goes down essentially at the war front right now. I know Nicole, you've been moving between communities down there. So I'm not sure exactly where you are. But I know there's probably a dozen different points of contact. There's been new reports of terrorist infiltrations this morning. What can you tell us latest from the battle front there? Exactly. David, it really has been a moving game all morning here as Israeli military is trying to move us away from some of these active scenes that we have continued to see throughout the morning here in southern Israel. So right now we are actually near Kfar Azad, which is one of the Kibbutz communities where a terrorist infiltrated the area and IDF said that they did eliminate that terrorist within the past hour and a half. So that was an active scene right. I could walk to the Kibbutz basically from where I am right now. And these are some of the hotspots that we continue to see. And so even though the IDF within the past two hours initially said that they had the situation on the ground here in southern Israel under control and there was no open exchange of fire between Israeli soldiers and Hamas terrorists about 20 minutes later. That's when we saw this infiltration here in Kfar Azad. And they say Israeli forces continue to say that even if there is no active gunfights between soldiers and terrorists, that does not mean the terrorists have all been eliminated. They want to urge citizens that they are continuing to patrol the areas, all of the fields going door to door, going into people's gardens even to cut in here. I know with this incident in Kfar Azad down there, there were some reports saying that these guys came out of a tunnel. Have you been able to confirm any that info? What have you heard out there? That is what the Israeli Defense Force says they are looking into because we know as the start of this war more than 48 hours ago now, that's when we had those dozens of different barricades through the Israel Gaza border fence. And now the Israel Defense Forces say they're also looking into the possibility that along with the weaknesses on our border fence, some terrorists are also coming in through tunnels. So although we don't have those confirmed reports, the IDF has confirmed that they are investigating it and actively looking into that possibility. As they are actively looking into that possibility of those terrorist tunnels, they're also actively looking for the terrorists to remain hiding in these communities. So within the past hour and a half, two hours, residents in Stay Rote were finally allowed to actually leave their bombs shelters for the first time in hours. However, still not a safe environment here as more and more feces. I do want to show you there are some scenes of happiness here, a pizza delivery on the side of the road, just like this. It's these little glimmers of hope and light and really the community coming together right now, which is I think one of the most amazing scenes that we have continued to see all across Israel right now. It's not just here in the south. I want to put a grim one to you. Besides pizza delivery is probably for security forces there. Look, the grim reality. I think you've seen it up close that the streets, the communities, the fields are still littered with bodies, with dead bodies. Isn't that correct? That is correct. I've seen multiple with my own eyes today as we're driving through the streets. It's an eerie apocalyptic war scene as you're driving here in the south. There are cars just lining, abandoned on the road. They're riddled with bullet holes, glass completely shattered, glass lining the the roads and bullet casings. I've seen just hundreds of bullet casings lining the roads as well. Some of these cars not only riddled with bullet holes but lit on fire. There's nothing left behind besides like the shell of the of the car, tires completely gone. So it is very, very eerie as you're driving through the streets down here in southern Israel. Residents are urged not to stay home. This is still a very, very active scene. We're in an active military scene as you can see. So any residents, citizens are still asked to stay home at this time. Absolutely. Nicole Tetic, first of all, some updates we'll get from you throughout the next two hours here. Thank you so far. Coming just from one of the danger areas there. We're stepping out for a short break here though, much more to come your way as there's a lot happening around us here. Stay with us. One show, a whole lot of perspectives. He is part of the problem. You want to talk about deep platforming? People are losing their lives. Not just what happened, but why does it matter? I'd like to finish my points. You're the one stretching terms here. Join us every night, 8 p.m. Eastern on Global On. The global conversation starts here. Holy Land Uncovered, every Sunday only on I-24 News. Shalom and welcome to Jewish World Weekly. I'm Kolem Vendaved and each week we're going to bring you the latest from the Jewish world, from politics to religion, entertainment to the latest trends, and everything in between. Don't miss Jewish World Weekly only on I-24 News. 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. Again, welcome back. I'm here with you at least for the next two hours. On the channel, we continue our rolling live coverage of the war that's playing out before us. And there's still open wounds all around the Gaza Strip. And just one of the horrific side shows of this Southern Massacre has perpetrated a holiday nature party. It's the type that really characterizes Israel's vibrant young spirit to take place throughout the year. They're generally a great atmosphere. Now, this one attended by thousands of young people again on the holiday and apparently targeted by Hamas murder squads. At least 270 people, perhaps many more, were mercilessly gunned down in those fields. The body count still being tallied, still unclear, but here's more about what we've learned about what happened there. Saturday morning, a party turns into a nightmare when terrorists that cross the border into Israel murder 260 innocent people. It was the biggest rave that Israel had. There were about 3,000 people. At 6 a.m., the bombing started over our heads. At that moment, we didn't know the disaster that was about to happen. We thought it was just another attack. We really didn't understand the gravity of the situation at that moment. We stayed there for at least an additional 45 minutes, and this was our luck. The people that ran out first are no longer with us. They were murdered. For many hours, Lonnie and Eden fought for their lives while countless terrorists turned the rave into a massacre. We started seeing bodies on the floor. There were cars around us with bodies next to them. You don't have time to think. You just do whatever that seems right at the moment. You're acting instinctively. While we were doing a U-turn, they were shooting us from the other side, so we did another U-turn. And while we were driving between all the corpses, we saw at the side of the road 10 to 15 terrorists that started shooting on our car. We bent down, speeding. We wanted to make a left, but there were four more terrorist guns, so we continued straight. We saw a factory with a guard that opened up the gates. We entered and hit the car. We tried to escape, but we were killed. Six hours later, we were killed. Six hours later, we were killed by two people. Most of the survivors from this event spent tens of hours in the bushes waiting for rescue, with no water or food. Terrified, some wounded. I hid in the bathroom, and I heard terrible things. It was a few hours of a massacre. They were looking everywhere. I don't know how they didn't look in the bathroom. They looked everywhere. People were hiding inside the bars of the fridge. They turned the whole place down. They made it their headquarters. We tried to get someone to help us, but no one came to our rescue. They told us, stay where you are and pray. We have nothing else to tell you. Just pray. You don't know when we'll get there. That's what the police said to many in the same situation. While the security forces were struggling, many civilians took matters into their own hands, risking their lives under fire to save as many people as possible. Friends of mine called me, saying there are alerts. I woke up, didn't even wash my face. The only thing I cared about was to bring them back safely. It was horrible. What I saw there, an officer wounded, two girls' bodies on the floor. I took my people. In my car there are seats for 14 people, but I took almost 30. The only thing I cared about was saving lives. Not far from here, maybe 600 meters. I saved a girl who was held captive by six Palestinians. They were terrified of me. They thought I was Shin Bet, but we were able to save 700 people. Since Saturday, Lami hasn't had a second to rest. They are either wounded or their bodies are here somewhere. He is still looking for missing people from the rave, and his phone doesn't stop ringing. Parents who are concerned about their children call him. Now he's looking for any clues that can lead to their whereabouts. He's not in contact with the IDF. He's acting on his own. But then, Lami receives terrible news. She was killed. She was also killed. My cousin is dead in one of the military bases. I was just informed. We are all affected by this. I don't know how I still keep going. It hurts. It's hard. Many are still missing. The hospitals are filled with John and Jane Doe's. Others were captured and taken to Gaza by Hamas. Their families are still searching for their whereabouts, hoping for any news, praying for the best. That's all. Very difficult to take in. We know for our viewers. And really, that's the nature of all of our coverage today. But we're joined now by Arik Nani, the survivor of that nature party. And Arik, first of all, thank you for having the fortitude, the strength to come on and join us. It's so important. So many people around the world right now, looking in, those who care about us, desperate to know what happened here, to understand what can you tell us? You know, what happened from your perspective? And when did you really first know that this was something outstandingly bad? Yes. So, first of all, this is the first time I'm watching the news since the event. So, yeah, I think I saw our car over there, like, from what you said right now. Yeah, what do you want me to tell? Sorry, I'm a little bit like... Of course.  Like, we just heard this report, you know, hearing the rockets overhead. When did it become clear that this was something different, something unusual, something much more dangerous? So, in the first place, we thought it was, like, only missiles. Like, there was sunrise, the music was really good, and then we look back and we saw dozens of missiles above our head. Everyone was trying to escape. We got into the car. Me and my friend tried to go to the side of Bery.  And then everyone turned around to the other side. The same event happened on the other side. I still thought it was only, like, two terror attacks, and not as big as it was after. Everyone ran away to the fields. We abandoned the car. And everything we had, only, like, it took the backpacks they had already and ran away. We tried to hide from the bombs first, because we didn't thought that the terror attack was that massive. People were running to the other side. And then after a minute, they got back screaming because we heard gunshots from their side as well.  It was like a traffic, like, all the traffic stops because of that many people. We went away, like, we ran away for six hours, 15 kilometers to the east side. We needed to hide. I would hide. I hid it in the bush for an hour, because there were shodding about my head at that time. I stayed with one friend that we saved each other's life. Like, when we were hiding in the bush, I had, like, an eyelash that fell on my cheek, and he asked me, this is a good time for me to pray and make a wish. I prayed for my life and for him. And I still have many friends that didn't go back, and they'll always say, we'll be back. Yeah, that's obviously so important to have a companion, to not be alone in that situation. So the two of you, at one point, how did you get away? Did you think you found a safe corridor or a direction you could run where there weren't terrorists? How did you end up getting back to safety? I actually don't know. I just ran away to the eastern side because many people were running to that side because it's the opposite side from Gaza. So that was the common sense. But we didn't run away with all the people because we didn't want to be a target. So we needed to hide and run and, like, hide. Yeah, so every time we ran away from the shootings, we heard, like, the bombings, so everything was... Like, it was chaotic. Everywhere I looked, there was a huge amount of black smoke to every side, and the smell of gunpowder in the fields that we stepped in. The place that we see right now, this is where our car stopped. And then we ran away. I think you mentioned this, all right, that you and your buddy made it out, but the fate of many of your friends is still unknown. Do you know anything? Do you have a lot of friends that basically have no idea what happened to them? I have no idea. I'm praying as much as I can. But I know, like, the said reality is more than two, almost 300 people were killed from this event. And I don't know how many people got injured. I didn't watch the news until now, because I'm trying to... Understand. ...share my story from one side, but to take care of myself as well. Understandable. Were you able, at some point, was your phone active? Were you able to be in contact with family? Did you try calling police or authorities at some point? No, like, people called me because they were hysterical. I sent a message to my parents, tried to know, like, I wanted them to know that I'm running. I'm not okay, but I'm alive. One situation that happened, I was like, I took a phone of someone, like, a phone fell on the ground, and they took it with me. We were hiding in the bush, and the shooting got really close to us. And in the middle of us hiding in the bush and trying to be as quiet as possible, the phone rang. And I had, like, a few seconds to turn it off, but that could end really bad. This was one of the just one of the harrowing moments for you out there as well. Arik, again, I appreciate you having the strength to come on and share this, you know, the slice of the experience with us from your perspective. And obviously, like the rest of us here, we're waiting to hear any news. I want to send the support to all the people, I want to send the support to all the people looking for the families or lost family members or friends and hope for better days. Absolutely. Arik, again, thanks for having the strength and fortune to come on and share your story with us here. This is as heavy as anything. Thank you for joining. Thank you. A lot to digest, obviously, from every direction we look. There's, the stories are just starting to emerge from the horrors that took place there. I'm still joined by Grisha in the studio here. Look, this, many of the tactics are starting to become clear a little bit. As we hear stories like this, I think we've been gleaning a lot of the information from survivors like this, sort of what happened, how Hamas was deployed, how many of them came in, where they went, how they acted. From your perspective here, are we witnessing just capabilities we didn't think they had, tactics that... How much of a surprise from what they did on the ground are we witnessing? What are they, besides the actual infiltration? Are they doing things we didn't think they could do? I don't think so. Okay. Let's go back a little bit to the reality that was created on the border between Israel and a terror entity. Now, we all knew that this is not the border between Italy and Switzerland, right? So as a border with a terror entity, there are certain operational behaviors that as a soldier, as an infantry soldier, it's a must. For example, every morning, there's a certain time, what I want to use the time, that everybody has to wake up and run outside and hold posts. Hamas studied the behavior of the IDF on the border and I said it here in this studio many times during the last two, three years. If you allow them to be there, if you give them sovereignty, you accept them being there, but they are also watching you. So they study you, they learn you and they understood the simple thing. It's our behavior the moment you launch rockets. I want to be clear. The drill is the moment rockets are launched from Gaza. Everybody in Israel, even soldiers, run to a safe room and then the orders are to stay 10 minutes after the boom inside the safe room. Now we are talking about critical 10 minutes. Now let's add to that. Thousands of rockets flying in the air. 6.30 in the morning, everybody is asleep with the individual underwears running where to a shelter. Now who is guarding? It's the post. Now how many soldiers are actually guarding the gates? Two here, one there. Every base between three to four to five maximum. How they morning during the morning. It's Sukkot. It means many, many soldiers also got vacations. Okay, now let's not forget. They are the enemy. They knew that they are on the border for years. So the whole operation was planned to those critical 10 minutes. So 10 minutes, rockets in the air. Everybody run to the shelters. 22 points of explosives on the fence and 1,000 terrorists run into Israel. And at the beginning, it's the first contact. It's the first basis on the border that they enter into those bases in those critical 10 minutes. So actually two lines of defense were crossed from one action. Rockets and cyber attack probably. Otherwise there's no explanation to what happens. I've been asked this question many because I can't explain it. There must have been some kind of interference with signals and communications and somehow in this army base. Again, this is my personal assessment. Again, we don't have evidence to that. I believe that we see Iran deeply involved in this attack. I'm sure that the fingerprints will be found. So I assume that there was a huge, huge cyber attack at those critical 10 minutes. That makes sense. Grisha, I just want to point out to our viewers, these are live images over Gaza City right now. There are apparently some airstrikes taking place right now in Gaza. And Gaza health officials also reporting deaths in Jabalia, other places right now that in other words, there's active IDF campaign going on there. I think we should come back to the Iranian complicity. Some have argued to me that with the image just behind you on the screen here, this is one of the newest battle tank for the IDF, destroyed on the border here. This is the Mark V that was destroyed by a drone, dropping an anti-tank thing on top of it here, anti-tank grenade on top of it. These are tactics we've seen in Ukraine and that perhaps the Russians taught the Iranians who taught Hamas. Are we seeing things like that? Are we starting to connect dots perhaps? And yeah, there's an Iranian hand behind some of this. If I connect everything, it was written on the wall. Hamas had a drill recently. Inside Gaza that we saw everything. Actually, they even published that this is what we are going to do. And on our side, I think this is arrogance, if you ask me. But again, I really want to put that aside because I'm tempted also to talk about the failure. But we have, it's hard not to. I know, but we have to put it aside. We have to, okay? Because we need to win the war. Now, what I wanted to actually to clarify is that the moment you accept the fact that there is enemy on your border, the same thing that is happening with Lebanon, with Hezbollah, by the way. On a larger scale. And actually what we saw is the Northern scenario that Hezbollah trained, is trained with Dr. Juan Brigades and Amal Brigades with the readiness to do the same thing in Lebanon or in the Northern part of Israel was actually implemented in the South. Yeah. And we see a lot of contact openly between Hezbollah and Khamas in recent weeks, months. And the only ones that connect between them are Iran. Right. Who else? And you just look at the flights from Iran. The Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs. A lot of high profile contact. Commanders from Iran. Meetings with Ziyad al-Nakhle, meeting with Salah Harouri, with officials from Iran.  It's a dog, as simple as itself. It's Iran. Right. Yeah. Look, I think a lot of what we're talking about here is the assumptions we had, if you want to call it that, the doctrines, the strategic doctrines, the determinants that we thought we were maintaining along these borders has literally exploded in our face. It all feels like, and started to put it this way, like garbage. None of it was working at all. I want to discuss more about that there. I do have a correspondent waiting. So we come back. We'll get more into these things. Our correspondent Owen Alterman, he's out there, as well, in Tel Aviv. Owen, there's been a lot of feelings of frustration, clearly, of people on the home front wondering what they can do, how they can help. I think a lot of it's turning out in some major donation. Volunteer campaigns, what are you seeing there, Owen? Yeah. Well, David, we're here at the Tel Aviv Convention Center, the Expo. First, we're going to take a look at what you actually see. These are people here. You can see packing boxes to send to civilians in need in the South, to send to reservists. And David, this isn't just an ordinary civilian initiative. This is a civilian initiative that is being organized by the protest movement against the judicial overhaul. The Brothers in Arms, the Building and Alternative Women's Group, the Kaplan Force Umbrella Organization, all of them out here. You may even be able to see the green shirt in your frame from the Brothers in Arms group. All here, essentially, taking their WhatsApp groups and their Facebook groups and their networks and a dime, turning them from mobilizing people to protest to mobilizing people to do just this. Collect donations for those in need, put them in boxes, and then get those boxes delivered to where they need to go. And by the way, there's another incredible story here too that I don't know if anyone else has told yet. 150 foreign workers, asylum seekers are here from Eritrea, from other countries. Again, people who came to Israel, in some cases fleeing an oppressive regime, haven't always been treated so well here. It's fair to say, again, there have been arguments on this side and that about their role in the country, about whether they should be or whether they should not. But at any rate coming out here and using their NGO that they have used to advocate for themselves, and this is the protest movement, changing it on a dime to come out here and to pack the boxes along with Israelis to help the Israeli civilians in need and to help the reservists. A short time ago, they even took a break to have a moment of silence for those who have fallen in the Hamas attack and in the fighting that's followed. We also have had, as you have as well, David, have had two sirens in the last hour where all the people you see here and one just a few moments ago have just on a dime run to an underground parking lot and just put down whatever they were doing and gone there with the 90 seconds that people in Tel Aviv have to run after the rocket siren sounded and they're in the parking lot. You can see it on my Twitter feed. Gathering together to sing the song, Kolaulam kulo gesher tsar meod. Right, the song that every Jewish nursery school kid knows, right? All of the world is a bridge and the main thing is not to fear at all. So obviously emotional moments here in Tel Aviv, surreal if appropriate and again, a cross-spectrum of Israeli society organized by the protest movement, but as we've just said, taking in many others as well. Look, when you touch that on this wider political backdrop that we've been in right now and it's worth mentioning, maybe you can shed some light on us here, that there have been quite a bit of discussion and offers I think even Batsano Smoktrich coming out in support of an emergency unity government right now, having parties like Benny Johnson and Lapid coming into a government now with the current government. What do we know about any of that happening or how that may affect the war effort? Well, listen, Yeir Lapid is essentially in the sidelines of that effort right now, David. Yeir Lapid's setting down conditions that the far-right parties, the National Religious Zionism Party and the Jewish Power Party of Batsano Smoktrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir would essentially be removed from the government and replaced by Yesh Atid. Those are terms that Benjamin Netanyahu doesn't seem particularly interested in. On the other hand, Benny Gantz of the National Unity Party who is doing much better as we all know in the polls than is Yeir Lapid, but it's still at the same time as a smaller number of seats in the Israeli parliament. Their talks are very, very active. Benny Gantz giving a speech last night, talking about how he saw it as important to enter the government and not only support it from the outside. The argument being, David, that Benny Gantz is not only the sense of de facto opposition leader given his standing in the polls, still a former head of the Israel Defense Force, the former chief of staff of the military and has another chief of staff of the military in his party. So these are people who could come in and sit in the room of the key decision makers over the course of the war and really add to the caliber it is argued of the decision makers. What's the holdup? Well, the holdup at this point seems to be that Gantz wants there to be a narrow forum where important decisions are made where he and presumably Gotti Eisencourt also from his party, again, the other head of the military would sit and the question is, would Betz El Smotrich and Yitzhak Ben Beer be in that room as well? Still unresolved, the talk's still ongoing, but there's a lot of pressure from all sides for this to happen. So it stands to reason that it very well might. Fascinating development on its own while the country reeling from so much else here. Oh, and ultimately, thanks for the look at also the heartwarming scenes of Tel Aviv and I know many, many people around the country contributing to these efforts. Thank you, Owen. We do want to come back to many of the stories of heartbreak and tied to this nature party that we covered so extensively here and spoke to one survivor of. We're joined now by Jessica Cohen, just a relative of one missing. Mark Peretz joining us right now. And I think I understand a bit of the backdrop here, the story that his daughter, if I'm not mistaken, was at the party and had called him for help. What happened from that point? What can you tell us about Mark? I'm sorry, it's a little bit hard for me to... ...really get out the entire story right here, but what we know in kind of a concise version is that Maya, my husband's sister, went out to the party and at 6.30 a.m., we woke up to rockets and we were looking for her. We were so confused why she wasn't in the house. We were calling her and she was screaming that she was running away from Hamas terrorists on trucks shooting at everyone. She's telling us on the phone that she's seeing people left and right falling from gunshots. And we were just trying to understand the situation, trying to understand what was happening in and out of the mamad of the shelter. So it was hard for us really to read the news and to understand. And then once we finally got to the news, we realized that Hamas terrorists had infiltrated Israel through Gaza, from the air, the land, and they tried to buy sea. And we realized that this was not a situation that we'd ever experienced before. We are at war and a war that we didn't predict and Israel wasn't ready for. I can tell you that we are currently living in a nightmare right now because we're really, really just waiting. We've been over 40 hours waiting for my father-in-law, my husband's dad to come home. So his daughter made it home. She made it home, right? She got away from the party and while he was looking for her, he went missing. Yeah, they were 20 minutes away from each other. They were also communicating on the phone. We were communicating with him. He was 20 minutes drive from her when he was at Somit Mifflas, Mifflasim. That's the last time we saw, we had connection with him. The phone got disconnected and his car is still there, but we got information from some IDF soldiers that he's not in the car. There are gunshots on the car, but we're really just looking for anybody in the area of Mifflasim, Kvaal-Aza or Oane to tell us if they've seen him because we're just really, really praying that he comes home soon. Difficult, Senator. Thank you again for having the strength to come on and give us some of the background on this. Is there any hotline? Are you getting information from anywhere or are you like so many others right now? Countless others just kind of sitting in the dark waiting for some information to come through? Well, there are some hotlines like 105 and 101 and we've been calling them, but mainly what we found to be the most helpful is going to LAV 433, the major police station in the area and we gave all the information. My husband gave his DNA, he gave his piece of his hair, he gave his toothbrush, he gave all of his DNA so that if they see Mark in the hospital and he comes in as a Jondo, that they can recognize him. We've given all the information that we can. And we are just waiting for answers. The police has the case, the police is updated on all of our last known whereabouts of Mark and we're just waiting for answers. Again, it's so important you come on to share this with our international audience. Again, there's so many of our viewers who care deeply about what's happening here and want to understand that have you felt the support of the community in a large way? Any uplifting side of this, you're not alone clearly in this tragedy right now. Any of you finding strength in that, the fact that there are others alongside you dealing with this? I can definitely say that everyone in Israel is one big family. We, everyone knows someone in the IDF. Everyone knows someone reserves. Everyone's family member is a big part of this. We're all here in this together. As far as Israel, I do feel the support. I feel the support from the IDF. I trust the IDF and I trust our government officials from outside of Israel. I feel the support from multiple countries that have been promoting Israel and support of Israel. And we just continue that we hope that it continues and we hope that it keeps going because this is what we need. We need the world to understand that, first of all, this is not an attack that we've had in the past and that we're used to. And this is bigger than any nightmare that we've ever been in and that has happened. Certainly is. Recently and we just need the world to be aware, yeah. It is a horror beyond anything, certainly in the histories of the state of Israel. Jessica, thanks for being with us on this and for having the strength. I know that the family is struggling so much and it goes a long way for our viewers to think in. Of course, we're following all these stories closely. As we approach another break here on the program, we will continue bringing you the hourly live updates here. There have been rocket barrages in the last hour, ongoing gun battles with terrorists still in and around the southern regions around the Gaza Strip. Nothing contained yet. Nothing settled yet. The war just in its infancy. Stay with us here. There's a lot going on. We'll continue to cover it here in I-24 News. We'll be right back. If you could travel to the Middle East right now without packing and without a plane ticket, would you? We are in Tel Aviv, Israel. Welcome to I-24 News Digital. We bring Israel and the entire Middle East right to your social networks. On your phone. On your desktop. Here, I-24 News creates videos especially made for social media. And believe me, we are out there working hard. Right here. Israel and Nepal. For the very first time. Is how they begin. Making original content. Streaming live. Even in the hard moments. There are literally rockets going off in a bomb shelter. And filming docuseries. You will find all the big stories you missed on television. So join I-24 News on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube. And discover the Middle East with us. Trail 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. Certainly while we're all in Israel, still reeling. Flailing to regain control of the southern front. Struggling to even comprehend the number of people slaughtered by the invading marauders from Gaza. That at least 100 people from the elderly to the toddlers taking captive inside there. Again, this is what we're facing. There are huge concerns still looking northward. That's where a much stronger, more capable enemy, believe it or not, in Hezbollah is a giant trap waiting to spring on us. And if our deterrent doctrine failed us so desperately now in the south, the risks are enormous in the north. And that's where we go to our Pierre Kloschenler who's been covering this situation. Look, Pierre, there were some noise up there in the last days. Is there anything activity today along the border we need to know about? What's your read being up there? There have been a few demonstrations, harassment of soldiers on the border by Palestinian refugees from the Ain el-Khilwe refugee camp near the Lebanese city of Tyre. But the situation is quiet. Quiet, albeit very, very tense. There is a high heightened state of alert and there is an incessant loud buzz from the unmanned aerial vehicles of the Israeli army. You hear them maybe. Now behind me is the Lebanese border. We've had a lot of difficulty covering the border area because residents are very, very, very cautious and suspect that we might give our position. That's why we're not saying where we are. We're just along the northern border. Now there are in the bush that you can see maybe behind me hundreds of soldiers just in that sector that are lying in ambush just in case of an infiltration. The scenario of an infiltration has long been perceived by the Israeli army as the most possible potential scenario for a confrontation with Hezbollah in the north. And yet that scenario materialized in the south of the country, not here. And now as a result, the army has buffered the area of the northern border has urged but it's only a recommendation to the residents of the communities that are adjacent to the border to leave their home and allow the army to take position in those communities. Many of those communities are half empty, 60% empty, two-third empty. But there are still residents that are inside the villages because the state of emergency has not yet been declared officially. Although Defense Minister Joav Galant has instructed the Home Front Command to prepare for an eventual evacuation, a mandatory evacuation of all the residents of the communities that are lying on the northern border. Now we are just being asked by a driver from the Israeli army to maybe pack up or asking us not to shoot this or that because there are certain places behind me in the frame that can be very sensitive for the Israeli army. And obviously we do not want to divulge them to the public and to Hezbollah who is probably watching us, David. Certainly not. Look, another layer, Pierre. Maybe this is, you know, we don't know yet but the U.S. has had a strike carrier group, I think the most advanced that they have moving into the Eastern Mediterranean is it meant to be a strong message of deterrence to Hezbollah perhaps? Absolutely. I don't think it's a very subliminal message. It's a very loud and clear message. President Biden just said a couple of days ago at the onset of this war that the world was watching regarding possible escalation on a multi-front arena around Israel. He said the world is watching and this was also a message to Iran and to its back militia Hezbollah in Lebanon which is just sitting maybe from here, I would say a kilometer by bird-eye view. Again, Pierre, thanks for giving us a look at that arena here the northern border and the updates from there. All eyes still as much as we're focused on the south, I know major concerns still on the north so thank you, Pierre. We'll come back for any updates. I want to come back in the studio here still Grisha with us. Grisha, what are your thoughts on the risks in the North right now? I mean, a lot of people on Saturdays, this is unfolding, I thought that that was about to pile on as well, that the region essentially smelling blood here. What's your read a few days now later when that element of surprise may be taken away from Hezbollah and we're still a hair trigger away from a real flow bone conflict with Lebanon? Yes, the element of surprise was actually given to Hamas and they surprised and 20,000 Hezbollah and the Amal fighters are already on the border. Of course, the idea is there. I think that what the United States did, the U.S. fleet coming close to Israel is not a message to Hezbollah or to Lebanon, it's a message towards Iran. Because from what I understand, the bigger plan is that stage A will be Gaza and what happened there. So Israel will be licking the wounds and be focused on what is happening in the South and then it will start from Lebanon. If Israel will attack Iran, actually we are talking about a unity of arenas that Israel will be attacked from Gaza, from Lebanon with a division in Syria that is... This has been hanging over our heads for years. Yes, this threat has been real. But also from Yemen. Let's not forget that Iran minimized their support to their proxies all over the Middle East and they were really focused only on Syria, Lebanon and Gaza. So will the element of threatening Iran by the United States will change the plans? Maybe. Will it do nothing? Also maybe. And I think that this is what it is all about. To see either Israel is going to deal only with the Southern arena or we are going to be attacked or be the necessity of our existence will be to deal with a multi-arena event. Look, this is obviously a moment where we're down. As a country, our strategic doctrines of deterrence arguably as I was starting to allude to before arguably have disappeared. So we can't have any faith that they're deterred from attacking us right now. What are the calculations are? Where does it go from here? You mentioned that first dealing with Gaza, then potentially Hezbollah, has our entire sort of survival doctrine here changed in these last 48 hours? This is a bigger earthquake that we realized for being a strategic survival in the region. It's an earthquake. Yes, I said it for the last three days. This is an earthquake. But let's not forget we are a very strong nation. We've been gone through a lot. There are already 300,000 soldiers in the reserve that already, after 48 hours, soldiers flying from all over the world to fight. And if somebody thinks that yes, and I would say yes, we failed Saturday, will that be the sign or the understanding that we are going to fail with other things? I think it was our last failure. But is this the test moment? Is the region watching essentially? How we react? How we come back from such a failure? Is that the critical test for us right now? First of all, as I said, we are entering to a war and we need to win the war and we will win the war. Okay. I think there's no our abilities. Our capabilities will be just shown to everybody. We are in a transition now, right now. The following hours, we are in the transition from defense to attack. And I think that I live in the south. So my family already hears the sounds of explosives in Gaza. So I believe that Israel is exactly at the moment of completing stabilizing the south, moving from defense to an attack situation and with readiness to whatever will pop up from the north. What about the West Bank? What about the other Palestinian arenas that we did some actively battling in for the last couple of years? Is that contained? I mean, what's the thought about that? If I'll go back for a minute to what I said about Hamas plan, okay, stage A. So yes, that was the first attack Saturday. And then the plan was to operate the small triangle. What do I mean by that? Gaza, the West Bank and Hamas and Pitch from Lebanon. Okay. And the moment it will roll, then they will be able to wake the exactly what happened in May 2021. The mixed cities in Israel. So what Israel was supposed to face is rockets from Gaza, rockets from Jenin, rockets from Lebanon, riots in the cities inside Israel. That was the plan. And if Israel will react, it will be too much, then they will operate the bigger triangle. It means Gaza, Lebanon, Hezbollah, Syria, Yemen and Iran. Complex pictures. I wanted to tell our viewers again right now, maybe getting it from on the screen, but they're rocket alert sirens again around us here in the Tel Aviv area. So ongoing rocket campaign. One thing, Grisha, what are your thoughts on this? That this horror show since Saturday morning has not been characterized by deep, heavy rocket barrages. I mean, there have been, but unlike previous rounds of fighting with Hamas, it seems that they're not really focused on it. Have they achieved enough around the southern border that they don't need to be raining rockets in? What's the thought about the sort of so far light rocket barrages that have come into Israel? Hamas achieved a historical achievement for them at the beginning of the war at the six first hours. The first wave after the rocket attack entered, kidnapped the people, and they took weapons and they conquered bases and they conquered settlements in Israel. So actually what they wanted to achieve, they achieved already at the beginning. And they've already landed direct missile hits that I tell of you ever said. I hope I'm not wrong. I hope I'm not wrong, but Iran and Hezbollah promised Hamas a network that the moment they do that and the moment they will succeed, and they were not, they were surprised from their success. We already hear that from Hamas terrorists that were captured, that are being investigated, that they were surprised from what they achieved. So historically they achieved and the only way to delete this achievement is to lead to one result, the collapse of Hamas regime enrolled in Gaza and in the West Bank. Must go. When it comes to the West Bank, this is the time, this is the time to strengthen the coordination and cooperation with Fatah and Mahmoud Abbas. We need to think the day after. That's a huge, huge factor right now. Grisha, Kubovic, thanks for being with us. Your perspectives on the Palestinian arena priceless for us in this moment. Thanks for joining. Just as we step out for a break, again, active rockets coming in. And if you're just joining, we'll be with you for the next hour as well. Still working to break down this ongoing terror that's besieged Israel's Gaza periphery unprecedented in its scale, in its brutality and still very active this hour, as we mentioned, the security forces struggling to regain any semblance of control there around the Gaza Strip. What's thought to be perhaps a thousand heavily armed coordinated Hamas terrorists have invaded Israel since Saturday, ongoing today. That was a surprise attack through many vectors here and among Israel's southern residents. Those families were believed that they were safe living down there by our leaders, by our defenses. That death toll has grown enormously. Some 800 people now confirmed killed from this attack just 48 hours ago. There is no previous terror attack, no massacre, no previous war in the history of this country to even grasp that for comparison again of the tragedy befalling us here. We're seeing live images on your screen as we head out to another break here of the troops preparing in the fields. Some of the airstrikes apparently taking place in Gaza. Still working to clear terrorists out of southern Israel. Do stay with us a lot more to cover in the hour to come here on I-24 News. So I started working at I-24 News at the end of 2016, anchoring the rundown and certainly one of the most memorable days would have had to have been May 11, 2021 when it was decided that we would move the show down to Ashkelon because the conflict with Hamas and Gaza had started and there had been rockets fired at Ashkelon that morning. Someone had actually been killed there. So the station had actually rented out the lobby of a hotel on the beachfront in Ashkelon. We went down there and was decided between myself and the field producer, Jenny Brunfermacher that if the air raid sirens went out during the program we would continue broadcasting live. But there was a problem. The manager of the hotel said that for insurance purposes we had to move down to the bomb shelter which was in the basement of the hotel. Unfortunately though, we could not broadcast, get reception to broadcast live from down in the basement. So Jenny and I decided we would actually just sort of continue the broadcast from the top of the stairs leading down to that basement. So sure enough, that's what happened. About an hour to a program the air raid sirens to rang out. We're live in Ashkelon. Air raid sirens are coming. I'm going to ask the guest to start moving please to the air raid shelter. I also will be moving. I very calmly told people on air that we were moving down to the bomb shelter. If Jenny then had a second camera follow me and catch me at the top of the stairs going down to the shelter and we continue to broadcast throughout that air raid siren in Ashkelon. We are now at the entrance here to the air raid shelter in the Regina Hotel. It actually the stairway leads down. The irony though is that was the only air raid siren in Ashkelon that night and after I threw it back to the studio in Tel Aviv and Benita who was anchoring there they had about another 30 air raid sirens in Tel Aviv that evening so they had it much worse than we had it but I was surely a night to remember for myself and for I-24 News. What's happening in cyberspace? Saturdays only on I-24 News. Welcome back here David Matlin, a company live from Tel Aviv. This is our rolling live coverage continues for this hour. I'm still with you breaking down again the ongoing terror that's besieged Israel's Gaza periphery if you're just joining us. It's unprecedented in its scale and apparently in its brutality still a very active front this hour. Security forces are struggling any control around the Gaza Strip was thought to be now perhaps a thousand heavily armed coordinated Hamas terrorists invaded in one fell swoop since Saturday morning's surprise attack there that was over land by sea by air and emerging now by tunnel and among Israel's southern residents these are families many of them young families who had lived there for all these years believing by our authorities that they were relatively safe to be there that death toll has grown to the point where there is no previous terror attack no massacre I don't want to say there's no war in the history of Israel to grasp that for comparison at least 800 people civilians confirmed dead more than a hundred of all ages grandparents down to toddlers dragged into Hamas captivity inside Gaza and the soldier toll is still climbing by the hour make no mistake it's a disaster of historical proportions for the Jewish people and it's a pivotal moment right now that's still so much of this playing out we want to go back to our correspondent Nicole Setic who's down in the areas of the fighting right now Nicole just about an hour since we spoke to you you know what's the latest what are you hearing is there still active you know fighting with terrorists in this region we do continue to hear active gun gunfights actually David in this area as you were saying I mean we are very close to the Gaza border as well about three miles away but we continue to kind of move through these southern cities right now we aren't nearest their own and this just gives you a look at what the roads are like in the south right now I want you to come over here you can see in the distance some of these cars that have been pushed to the road I know it's difficult but some of the cars completely burned to a crisp just there the shell of the vehicle remaining others of them riddled with bullet holes now you can see anyone who is driving through right now as they shouldn't be on the roads they are hauling through these roads right now I'm going to bend over right now I'm picking up it's images like this a license plate that's just sitting in the middle of the road an Israeli license plate just some of the remnants that is shattering all of these roads all these streets here in these southern cities it's not only this it's not only cars you can also see remnants of people that were out and about if you look over here you can see a walker that's right on the on the sidewalk right there left behind completely turned over along with some blankets right there as well so really devastating images as you drive through these towns of destruction of everything that has been happening for the past 48 hours now all of this as you're driving through the area we also continue to hear airstrikes happening overhead we know that the Israel Air Force is continuing to strike Gaza and we know that Gaza is continuing to fire rockets towards not only southern Israel but central Israel as well so there are many public bomb shelters around here also because in these southern cities you have no time 10 to 15 seconds to run to your safe place get in a shelter and hunker down because these these rockets they come very very quickly it's very very dangerous and additionally to that as you mentioned at the beginning of this broadcast it's the fact that there are still active terrorists in the area as well with IDF confirming that Hamas terrorists are continuing to be here they continue to patrol the fields patrol houses patrol these residential communities around here to see exactly where these terrorists are hiding out but we don't even have a confirmed number as to exactly how many they are looking for at this time and so that's really what's concerning so many of the residents right now the unknown what exactly is happening on these streets right now because because we don't know the sheer number of terrorists that could be hiding out in any of these dunes or any of these fields in these southern cities and residential areas here here in southern Israel yeah Nicole difficult scenes to take in I know it and I appreciate you being with us obviously this is a hard front to report on right now so much unsettled so much destruction so much death surrounding out there Nicole Zedek thanks for the updates again the active war front down in the south that it is but at this hour just as we're speaking here at the area in sirens have sounded in the north or so concerned or a peer cloche and there's up there on the northern border Pierre we just spoke really a short time ago some minutes ago it seems things have changed what's new there's been a red alert a rocket alarm in the eastern sector of the Israeli northern border with Lebanon in villages such as Ramot Naftali if tough in the Galilee panhandle this is not far from the rocket and missile attack that has Bola launched yesterday on Mount Dove which is also in that same area right now here there is no red alarm but there is a very high state of alert that we have sensed since we came to the northern border communities only yesterday and we've seen a lot of true pre-enforcement we've seen a lot of determination by the Israeli soldiers that want to finish off this terrible predicament that Israel is grappling with at this moment we are inside a community village but I can't tell you which one for security reasons but you can see that the villages have been called up in our manning the entrance of that village just here because the most of the people most of the male population has been called up in reserve we have heard amazing numbers of 300,000 soldiers mobilized in just 48 hours now these soldiers are checking every car that goes in and that goes out of this community village as you can see just behind me these are reservists they're from that village they say to me that 60% of the residents have already voluntarily left the area because of the recommendation of local councils but other people have decided to remain Pierre, dramatic moments tents certainly very tense up there thank you Pierre Kloosch for their coming to us right along the northern border there with the updates on the minute here again waiting for any possible outbreak of greater hostilities they're adding to the nightmare that we're already in here look in the studio now we're joined by Rafael Roshalmi former IDF, senior IDF intelligence officer and security analyst Rafael good to have you in the studio with us this hour we're trying to wrap our head around so many things here look this is clearly an enormous victory for Hamas arguably for the Palestinians if we don't frame it this way we know Hamas has a lot of popularity in the Palestinian arena likely that's spiked greatly in the last few days this is perhaps our most sensitive security issue facing the Palestinians in Israel how does the country respond how do we come back from this right now especially out of the failures that were so glaring this weekend what do you expect to see this week okay so the only way what I expect or what do I wish because what the public opinion in Israel including myself as a citizen wish that this is the last time we are facing the Hamas and that this time the government will have the courage politically and otherwise to take the decision to end the Hamas hopefully the only consolation we might have is that by attacking us in this ferocious atrocious way the Hamas has signed its own death warrant if at the end of this war operation call it what you want it doesn't matter if at the end of this war we hear that the objective was as it is now so vague to dismantle the military capacities and maybe the political capacities of the Hamas this is not an objective the objective is we shall destroy the Hamas forever short of that the operation will be a failure short of that all the people who died civilians and soldiers and those who might die in the future will die for nothing so I just wish I do not expect I still in part of all the problems that have emerged I still and I think a lot of the people of Israel still have a full face in the idea full face in our security services love for our soldiers love for our officers a little less maybe for our politicians that should they have put the country in such a chaos and now is the time for them to unite and we're still waiting for them to unite want to mention reviewers I mean the army that was you know standing guard on that morning was essentially the skeleton crew and the reserves the real army showing up now to get things done rough health stay with us we do have a break we have to jump out to you right out much more live coverage of the war we're in here in Israel when we come back 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 i24 news made for me official dresser of i24 news good evening ladies and gentlemen welcome back with our ongoing live coverage now as I come to you from Tel Aviv as we face rocket fire not only here but across wide swaths of the country in the southern periphery area around the Gaza Strip virtually destroyed at this point some 20 communities at least completely infiltrated by what may have been a thousand highly armed highly coordinated Hamas terrorists that rolled in by surprise at the crack of dawn on saturday morning and that incursion has been ongoing there's still active battles and the death toll is climbed to grim levels we've never seen before I keep hammering that point home here that this is the crime that's been inflicted on us here at least 800 people killed already by the Hamas terrorists that infiltrated at least 100 dragged back into the Gaza Strip now into the dark clutches of Hamas there from the elderly down to the toddlers and children and we're going to bring you some more of those gut wrenching stories and at least try to expose you as much as we can here as these stories are starting to emerge the reality is emerging the country's been in virtual darkness here since this happened on saturday not knowing a lot about what was occurring in these southern regions as well so as we break it down now I'm still joining the studio about Rafael Rolchami the security analyst with us here look Rafael just before the break you know you're saying that it's your wish it seems to be the rational you know strategic decision at this point that Hamas cannot remain in Gaza Strip with any type of power that this is a threat that can't be contained that can't be deterred you said that was your wish though and what do you expect and if not if that doesn't become the goal here what argument could be made what might be what argument might be put to us about why not at this point there might still be for instance mixture of international pressure at some point because you know we have the world's support but we have it for two or three days for a moment as soon as one of our missiles by mistake will hit a school or something I think we're already I think it's already we'll be the bad guys all of a sudden that's one thing but in the meantime we do have a window of opportunity we've had that in the past we've had that at the very beginning of protective border we had that before and we didn't use these windows of opportunity when the whole world is not going to say anything if we strike very very hard with collateral damage that we do not want but we also do not want to be the collateral damage of the Hamas designed the situation that requires collateral damage another scenario that might put like brakes into the Israeli offensive is to give a chance to the diplomatic efforts that the Egyptians mostly are making to convince the Hamas to do at least some kind of a humanitarian gesture by freeing unconditionally mind you children and elderly people that it is detaining now in Gaza this effort is being it feels like a fantasy Raphael sorry it feels like a fantasy to think that they would do something it is a fantasy but it's happening I mean the Egyptians are now in Gaza trying to negotiate convince they are trying to obtain some kind of a leverage with other our countries the Jordanians apparently agree to voice also their concern humanitarian speaking even though they still support the Palestinian cause it might be that the Emirates or other countries even maybe Turkey could intervene so this we have to give it a chance if even if it's a very slight chance and he can and what we should if not really honestly we have to be serious we have to stop here the Hamas has to disappear from the world the palace the world would be a better place but especially Gaza would be a better place we are giving here the possibility for the Gazan people to have a normal life and not be under the tyranny of the Hamas so any other decision will be a disappointment for the whole public opinion the public opinion of Israel today the Hamas has achieved what four elections haven't achieved unity have heard rabbis telling people of students of Yeshiva we cannot stay now sitting on our Yeshiva bench we have to join the people so we are united now the public opinion is behind the army the public opinion is beyond the government if it would do its job so far I'm afraid to say the government and the opposition they are not doing their job they are being paid to run this place like it should be they are just now discussing the nitty gritty of how they should unite and who is going to do what and so this is not serious this is a big disappointment I hope that in the coming hours these things are you know people are going to take a grasp on themselves and see that's what's at stake here but honestly I say it again and again short of a complete annihilation of the Hamas we will have achieved nothing if at the end of this war with all the casualties that we have and we're going to have there is still even a nucleus of Hamas still there because that nucleus will again develop into a regime over Gaza yes this is about how we respond in this moment absolutely the world watching the region watching yes a couple of things there are two things that were easy to do just before without any preparation of a Hamas offensive one when the the riots started a few days ago on the border these riots many people and I said it here in the studio we said you have to nip it in the bud they're burning tires they're not burning tires this is the beginning of a ride just shoot them this is the proportionate the world will condemn us we have to nip it in the bud now that didn't happen and the other thing for years we've been calling to eliminate physically the leaders and commanders of the Hamas just shoot them just kill them with a drone with what you wish now they are feasting their victory in luxurious bunkers and their hospitals and schools of Gaza Alfredo show me let's deal with this here we are joined by a special guest right now to give us again just more of a glimpse of reality of what's happened here we're joined by Yossi Schneider Yossi I don't know how to describe you and your plight specifically here I know that you've experienced unspeakable loss essentially right now can you can you tell us you know what's happened to your family we are 6 a.m. and started in morning we started to eat alarms when I'm leaving the center of Israel and we were one alarm after each other and I didn't believe that something really happened in Israel and then I started to understand exactly what's happening I started to look on the news on the telegrams and I start looking for my family to see if everybody's okay and then I saw the movie that you are showing right now this is my cousin with two little children Ariel is four years old and she is nine months old and she's been kidnapped by the terrorists those animals of Hamas and they probably been kept in Azerbaijan right now we don't know what's happened with the Jordanian husband we just see the bloods on the shirts and on the blankets and my aunt Margie and her husband Yosti that we see in the picture right now has also been kidnapped and my aunt is very ill she needs a life-saving medicines and without it she will not survive and we are completely blank we don't know what's happening we don't know yet we have zero information from them we are really praying for the safety just for clarity like so many others you learned what happened to them from these Hamas videos correct I mean there's been no other sort of source of information yeah we saw the movie with Chiri in about 10 or 11 a.m. and started in the morning first of all I saw the pictures I saw the pictures and I couldn't believe the first picture was completely shot I needed to open another picture just to understand that I'm really seeing Chiri and her kids and I didn't know what to do I called my father to tell him that his nephew was kidnapped and I started calling my family and it's a situation that we didn't know what to do with it we called the military we called the police station we tried to get some kind of information or to give information but no answer from anybody so this is unfortunately been the story widespread here and just so many of this horror coming to light today are you finding I don't have comfort it's the right word but some form of community at least around you I know the nation deeply cares and so many other people unfortunately you know dealing with a fate like this where are you finding comfort I know there's no one to call there's no information from the government are you finding comfort from your neighbors from your friends from your family here I find we are Israelis and we are always been together when things go wrong we are always together we'll fight and we will win and we will survive this and I'm telling the Hamas that I'm hoping for them that they will keep them alive and they keep it safe and they give them all the food and then the medicine and everything that they need I'm telling all Europe and the US and all the countries in the world for years we're telling you that Hamas is a terror organization for years you're blaming us and judging us for all the things that the Hamas is doing for years that you are closing your eyes I'm telling you some of them these days the oldest terrorist oldest radical they're not even animals okay you should even call them animals they're in Europe right now they're in Paris they're in London they're in the US some of the some of them days they will knock on your door and what you see right now that's happening in Israel in Gaza you will see it in your houses it's time to the world to wake up and understand that we are not dealing with people we're dealing with radical terrorists that only wants to destroy everything that they seem you have to wake up that's what I'm saying You'll see Schneider I know viewers from around the world right now are listening to you and tuning in here they want to know what's happening they deeply care about what's happening here and your story from the fortitude to come on our program even today to share this thank you so much for joining us we wish you well obviously we stay tuned thank you very much and please please please please make sure that the pictures are going all over the world don't take don't blame us on what's going to happen in Gaza don't blame us we are the only trying to survive right now so please help us and please be on outside that's what I'm asking you well put thank you again you'll see Schneider thanks for being with us thank you very much heartbreaking of course that's the story of what's coming to light now just barely 48 hours after this disaster began we go to our correspondent Owen Alderman though who's out in Tel Aviv with another relatively uplifting example of how the community is coming out as the man we just spoke to Owen said hey you know where's Rayleigh's we band together this is what we do we deal with crisis I've seen it in my own time here Owen I think you're seeing it with your eyes out there right now describe what's happening out there yeah well as you can see David we are here at the Tel Aviv Convention Center which would happier days host major events I'll step out so you can take a look the hundreds at this point maybe dozens earlier there were more I'll get to why there may be less at this point in a moment we're here packing the boxes you see the open boxes they're being packed with goods that were brought here by donors these are goods either for civilians in the south whether it be baby food or toys or clothes or things that would be needed by reserve soldiers showing up to go to duty in the front and be blankets hygiene products and the like and David what's especially interesting about this is that this is an initiative that's being run by the protest movement against the judicial overhaul which on a dime took its WhatsApp groups took its social media took its networks and just did a switch instead of mobilizing people to protest against the government mobilize people to come out here and to help the civilians in need and to help the troops so those are the ones who are organizing but they're taking in wider circles there are you may have seen them a moment ago 150 Eritrean migrants asylum seekers who are here who came out also took their NGO that normally would advocate for their rights and they switched the NGOs activities to again mobilize for this initiative and they've been here over the course of the day actually about an hour ago had a moment of silence stood out in the road took a break for a moment of silence in memory of those who have been killed whether those killed in the Hamas attack or in the fighting afterwards so again an expression by them of their connection to the country that they're living in and to the wider Israeli society we also like everyone in Tel Aviv David have had two sirens while we've been here and so this entire area that you just saw everybody here busy at work to help people at the front just in a moment has to put down whatever they're doing and then walk or run to a parking structure across the road getting there within the 90 seconds that people in Tel Aviv have in order to avoid being hit God forbid buy a rocket and in that parking lot after a few moments people gathering in a circle and singing the song that every Jewish nursery school kid knows kola olam kulo gesher sar meod the whole the entire world is a narrow bridge and there's nothing we can do but not fear oh and good to touch patients you're out there glad to see the initiative carrying on we'll be back another short break here stay with us 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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 i24 news welcome back still continue our live coverage here from Tel Aviv as we've experienced some rocket fire just in the recent minutes hours here while we continue to broadcast live the state of war that we're in the disarray just the south ravaged by an invasion of what's thought to be upwards of a thousand heavily armed Hamas terrorists that infiltrated by surprise at dawn on the holiday just two days ago now along with the rising horrific death toll already considered to be at least 800 people killed by these marauders so many kidnapped dragged back into the clutches of Hamas and the Gaza Strip from the elderly to toddlers so many in between men women did not matter and now we're fortunate to be joined by Adva Adar she's the granddaughter the Yafa Adar who was kidnapped by Hamas it was highly filmed throughout that process here if you see many of the images have emerged look thank you for being with us I want to start of course thank you for being having the strength and the fortitude to appear on our show right now nothing easy about that but it is so important I want to tell you there's people looking in from around the world who deeply care about us who want to know what's happening you want to understand more so thank you for being with us look you're thank you for listening you're your elderly grandmother I mean as I mentioned she was widely filmed you know as she was taken in first I mean just tell us what do we know what do you know about what happened so my grandmother lives in Kibbutz Niroz which is near the border with Gaza she's 85 years old and she lives by herself we lost contact with her around 9 a.m. when she wrote us that there's a terrorist in the Kibbutz that they are shooting and shouting oh my God the pictures yeah sorry take your time of course I'm sorry they are shooting and shouting and then we lost contact we couldn't reach her anymore oh there you are where they were hiding my aunt asked them to get into her house and they found the house completely broken the terrorist that got there left nothing and she wasn't there we there was such a chaos no one knew where is she and what happened and we heard that there's videos so we start to look at them and then we found her video of dead people from Gaza the terrorist uploaded of her getting kidnapped and brought into Gaza you can hear them in the background clapping their hands celebrating like it's some kind of a trophy like I thought we're showing that we're showing that on the screen right now and I know this is horrifying and painful to see we're showing I can't hear you I'm sorry just a minute I don't know why I can't hear you our viewers again we're seeing that video yes I hear you Adva I don't know if you can hear us we were just showing that video of her in that cart that looks like it was something stolen from the Kibbutz straightforward may have been her own little vehicle for getting around the Kibbutz that they drove back to Gaza taking her in there yes I know this is gut wrenching and painful and again thank you for being with us on this I believe it's critically important for our viewers around the world to see this to take it in to understand what happened here so thank you for being strong this is obviously crushing to see this right now but we see your grandmother at least appearing to be in okay shape you know in this cart I mean this is an upside here that at least doesn't appear that maybe you know that they didn't harm her obviously they took her we don't know anything about the fate but this is how you learn of how it happened you saw the Hamas videos this is how we learned about it I have to tell you that my grandmother is ill and without her medication we don't know how long she can stay so maybe they haven't heard her I hope but it's not like you have a lot of time without her medication and she's this particular project with a gross capacity of 103.5 megawatt will be producing around 200 they knew their neighbors over there did your grandmother share those sentiments towards the people in Gaza? yes she did I have to admit that in the last years with all the rockets it's a little bit harder to you know remember that there's neighbors in the other side but my grandmother did believe in peace she did wanted to live her life quietly she didn't want no harm to happen maybe I've lost your sound again there Adva it's not yeah we got you yeah she could ever imagine it's not something anyone in our worst nightmares could imagine no none of us the entire country is with you and that shock and horror at this point have you and I I think the answer is we know this all right but have you received any kind of information from authorities or is there is there anyone providing you information or at this point you're still just in the dark with like so much of us so many of us waiting to know so today yeah someone came from the authorities and gave us the formal announcement that she's been kidnapped we already knew it but we got an official confirmation and unfortunately there's now a fake video going around posted as my grandmother coming back home and I have to tell you and please tell the word that's fake she's still being held in Gaza she's still not home with us and we're trying to make everyone help us pressure them to bring her home so the video that was posted that's fake that's not her yeah there's certainly a lot of danger out there of a lot of this is very psychological warfare campaign going on by the terrorists there so important to know that Adva can only thank you again for having the fortitude to just give our viewers a glimpse of the pain and suffering going on here and the realities of what happened here that your 85 year old grandmother dragged out of her home by these terrorists and taken into Gaza this is something the world needs to understand our viewers are desperate to to feel and understand themselves so thank you again being strong enough to to come here and share that story with us we wish your family a strengthened fortitude and of course our hearts with with everyone thank you thank you very much and based on the activity ongoing in the south here this has not been a moment of quiet essentially since the crack of dawn on saturday morning I don't believe in any of these communities including not just the small Kipuzim and Moshe Veeam small towns that they are around the small communities really around the Gaza Strip the city of Stain wrote or tens of thousands of people live also inundated by a terrorist infiltration now on a massive scale that the country's never known before want to emphasize that again and our correspondent Nicole Setic she's down there in this area of the fronts again Nicole I think in between each time we've spoken there's been some form of activity whether it be new incoming rockets or other gunfire in the area just give us if you can a recap what's happened in the last half hour down there it really is a non-stop and developing situation as you said David with just new developments every every minute really as we continue to hear just in the distance different airstrikes happening in the Gaza Strip as we know the Israeli Air Force is continuing to attack multiple targets in the Gaza Strip in the distance we can even see continue to see these smoke plumes happening behind us but all of those smoke smoke plumes are really dissolving into just all of the haze and the smoke that fills the sky out here I mean as you're driving through the city it almost it burns your eyes and your nose because you can smell the smoke and the decay really that is happening in these southern cities so it's very difficult to be out here everything that we are seeing and hearing in the air as well we are near a designated public bomb shelter as well because in these cities when there is a red alert which we continue to see these red alerts you have 10 seconds to run to your public bomb shelters so that's why we are right across the street it's right behind me exactly because that's as far as you can really Brazilian style right but this is just the way the way the residents have tried to beautify the ugly realities that they've had to live with Nicole thanks for glint it's horrible and what's going on exactly yes Nicole I'll stay with you I know we're actually pushing through the break here now so Nicole's still with us here I mean give us an idea and I know this is tough to explain to our viewers you mentioned the decay the sheer atmosphere of war that's around you I think in this moment it's important to bring that pain to our viewers that there are bodies littering the streets down there littering these communities still displayed out across the cities and you've seen many of that exactly and so even as you mentioned trying to beautify these horrible ugly bomb shelters that we need to have every 30 feet or so I was in some earlier that are just littered with bullet holes gunshot shell casings all of the ground and blood so as I was talking about that smell of decay some of these bomb shelters also wreak of death and it's truly horrible because these places that people need to run to for shelter as they're trying to save themselves from the rockets being fired from Gaza Strip and Hamas Hamas Terrace as we know have also infiltrated the area down here so then they were gunning down people who were trying to seek shelter in some of these bomb safe places in these southern cities so those are some of the scenes that you'll see as you're walking through here as I've shown you before also just cores littering the streets that are riddled with gunshot gunshot holes bullet holes glass everywhere all over the streets you have to be careful where you're walking because there is glass everywhere from all of this destruction so really that's what it is out here just a scene of destruction and residents in this southern area continue to urge caution because we know that there are still terrorists in the area IDF forces are actively searching for them overhead we continue to hear different planes different helicopters different sources exactly so you can continue to hear the fighting happening overhead because not only are there ongoing searches on the ground for these terrorists but there's ongoing shelling as well as we are just mere miles from the Gaza border and so all these citizens residents families that are living in these communities this is people these are people's homes this is exactly where we know where they've been living and so obviously these communities have been decimating you know since Saturday morning so many murders still untold numbers we don't know kidnapped what do we know about people still in these areas I know the army's been trying to evacuate anyone left in there are do we know there are still people hiding in their homes or in these areas are thought to be a sizable civilian population still in these areas well luckily we have heard that most of these different villages towns were hearing reports that about 50 of them near these the Gaza border have been evacuated at this time but some of the larger cities like stay wrote for example has not been evacuated yet now in the meantime it's one of the reasons that has delayed some evacuations was as IDF troops were continuing to cleanse the streets patrol the streets try and find those terrorists who have infiltrated these communities however we did hear that there's no active exchange of gunfire between terrorists and Israeli soldiers so residents in stay wrote were told that they could now leave their shelters for the time beating but remain near their shelter because as I said Israeli soldiers are still looking for those terrorists even if there's not actively an exchange of gunfire and in the meanwhile they need to stay near bomb shelter because we continue to get these air raids irons red alerts from all of the rockets being fired from the Gaza strip as well so well many residents have evacuated the area when they are able to and if they are able able to other residents have not been able to so far and so that's really the concern for so many people that are still left here Nicole on the street level of the war ongoing the fights to take in place inside Israel so as you mentioned it cleans our country of these terrorists that came and murdered so many Nicole Setic thanks for the updates here it's a painful moment we appreciate getting the live updates from me here we'll try to keep updating our viewers as anything develops so I'm bringing us back in the studio with Rafael Roushami looking at the from the ground level to the big picture here failure the glaring concept here Rafael of what happened not just for the residents but for the whole country with the way we were attempting to contain the Gaza Strip is this a clear reset point at the very least of Israel's entire survival doctrine in the Middle East of containment and deterrence does everything have to change from this point forward yes it would have changed a little before that we know that for many many years the Hamas was threatening the south of Israel we know that there was some kind of theory at the political level that the Hamas should stay in place that we don't want to get rid of it because we might get something worse or that or that a character you know you know the sentence the most stupid sentence is a better anemone that you know than okay this this was this was the policy yeah with that there was on the part now this is the political thing I'm security analyst as a security analyst I think maybe the responsibility is also in the army because if and would the commanders of the IDF have come to the political level with a plan with a possibility to finish of the Hamas in a military way at a low cost with no risk for the political level you know to to be embarrassed by a failure right it would have been offer a plan there have been few times the army came with a plan to eliminate the leaders for instance unfortunately of late the army anyway hasn't been listened to by the political level a deaf ear the chief of general staff of the IDF had to knock on many many doors for three days before he was received by the prime minister to alert him of the problem and the dangers of the security situation so this is this is very very bad the reset is mostly we have to do an internal examination the reset is to change our ways our politicians are not doing their job and they are not listening to the army enough but in the army of course they will have to take lessons to the army I would say something that might sound a bit surreal or silly but I will compare it to the big football teams you know who got this huge champion teams like Barcelona they have the best coach they have the best training they get millions of dollars and sometimes they get beaten by a small team from Switzerland so it means it happens to the best we have to remember that it happens to the best this one is of course catastrophical the reset and the examining of what happened and what we should do this is for later now we really have to get grasp of ourselves and fight I know that the people of the street those reservists that are going now to back to the units they are going with a spirit of defending their country they are going with all the suffering in the heart of listening to their brothers and sisters in pain we have now to make sure that in the coming hours the government will find its path and will come with a clear objective which is the destruction of Hamas there is a good sign there is some kind of a sign that might indicate that is that blockade a siege to starve Gaza meaning at this point we do not consider the collateral damage we usually try as much as we can to avoid punishing collectively the Gaza people going to great lengths to avoid we can still have absolutely no hatred but in this particular case we are in self defense so it has been decided to cut the water and electricity to Gaza so this is the start of a blockade to starve Gaza the problem that when we starve Gaza we will have to be very strong because and the Gazan of course but because the Gazan people in the street they will starve the first the leaders in their bunkers believe me they have champagne and they have maybe not champagne because they are Muslims but they have all the good foods and they have a lot a lot in the larder of their bunkers and they are in their hospitals but we still have to do that you know there is one thing that we have never worked upon and it is a huge mistake again we have never encouraged and comforted the opposition inside Gaza inside Gaza there is an opposition a lot of people have a very very difficult life there they are not happy at all with the Hamas there were demonstrations a few months ago that were very violently repressed by the Hamas you have still PLO members and sympathizers in Gaza so why hasn't the she-bed with the CIA and whoever you want given logistics and advice and support to an opposition a kind of resistance inside Gaza that we could use today we could use today if we had if we have to go in that seems like the next steps pending well days to talk about that rough health things so far we do want to jump back to the northern border or of course bottom pier closure and they are standing by pier major tensions even on Saturday as all this was breaking around the south so many people looking to the north with one eye as well how do you define situation up there today now two days after the surprise invasion there's a I have the tension can you can you cut it with a knife there is an increased heightened I have an echo there is an increased heightened tension state of alert here and as a result the the Israeli army has buffered the northern border just in case there is a just in case there is some sort of Hezbollah activity against Israel now there has been some testing of the water by Hezbollah yesterday and today again today a flurry of a dozen rockets have been launched toward the Galilee panhandle which is further east from where we are standing on the northern border here we didn't hear the alert there there was an alert and the villages of Ramot Naftali Iftar Malkia the Galilee panhandle were targeted we don't know now what is the outcome of this shelling because the IDF in its community is very laconic it's checking the the area on the other hand yesterday in more or less the same area near the the Mount Dove mountain there was also shelling by Hezbollah and a guided anti-tank missile that was launched on an Israeli outpost provoking no casualty but some damage to the outpost Israel yesterday responded with artillery shells no casualties as far as we know on the Lebanese side but here you see the tension very clearly not only by the soldiers but also by the residents now we are being told right now that hundreds of soldiers in this sector for instance are hiding lying down in the Maki in the scrub land which is just behind me on the border in order to prevent Hezbollah infiltrators critical at this moment Pierre Klosch on there appreciate the updates there from 10th northern border with Hezbollah on the other side look come back in the studio here again Rafael Oshami fellow Meir I'm hearing updates that Israeli sources are denying that this is really any kind of substantive negotiations with Hamas to exchange women and children or to retrieve them okay this is obviously such a sore point such a point that we hope is gaining us some sympathy from the world at this point how critical is that right now in this moment I think we mentioned this before that there's you know a window perhaps of opportunity for Israel to take big action with the world somewhat on its side is that a critical thing to harness at this point yes we should we should strike as hard as we can during these two or three days at least let's hope that we have the support of the world and not that we shouldn't do our job even if you don't have the support of the world first of all we have to salute the American nation and people because we have support and I think the gesture of Joe Biden is historical it's a game changer I think the Americans after having been very timid you know about the Middle East and not wanting to involve fruit even Donald Trump took troops out of the Middle East Joe Biden is coming back and he's telling the Middle East and he's telling the Iran just watch us and that is absolutely wonderful and I salute the American people for that this being said we have to try hard what does it mean to strike hard we said bombing we said bombing even though we might create collateral damage we have to try and I would call here all the NGOs working in Gaza and UNRWA working in Gaza to help evacuate Palestinian people from them homes to help them go into a certain open areas to even on the beach but to help us make and the stands and we will do it also by leaflets and even by calling them by phone to these people to evacuate their houses and bomb and bomb and bomb but in the end we have no choice if we want to finish the job to enter on the ground and there you are talking a very very bloody combat with a lot of casualties on both sides a lot of collateral damage so it's not easy because we are dealing it's not a war we make too many comparisons with the Yom Kippur War the Yom Kippur War two armies on the battlefield here you are going into urban warfare guerrilla warfare street to street house to house who against an enemy who knows every back alley there who has our soldiers of course first time it's it's very very intricate that no army in the world no chief of staff in the world dreams to be in that position that our army is in today it's one of the most difficult theater of operation ever worse than the jungle of Vietnam worse than the desert of Iraq this is the challenges who are faced with as at the same time that we are suffering deep in our hearts and the Israelis have one thing that they always do they keep their cool they they grass they take a graft on themselves and they they're gonna do it but it's very very difficult because this time the pain is very deep and the trauma to the whole Jewish nation is huge but it should also be a trauma for the world the signal to the world as was rightfully said by one of your guests these guys they could knock at anybody's door today in the world because they are all over the place that's why of late the Jewish communities are receiving in a few countries added security measures this is this is just because it has nothing to do with the Zionist occupation it's pure Jew hatred and it's pure violence yeah since the threats are real and they're more sharp and pointed than they've ever been perhaps at this moment Rafael Gushami appreciate you joining us for this hour again no negotiations with Hamas at this hour cornering Israeli sources not that we've been really waiting for that to happen at all but we know there are at least a hundred people kidnapped inside Gaza at the death toll on the civilian front still climbing