Thanks for watching. I have 24 news this hour for the latest live updates from Israel on the Israel Hamas war and other threats from across the Middle East. We begin in Gaza, a horrific and deadly weekend as the Israeli ground offensive in central Gaza expands. The IDF says eight soldiers were killed by Hamas yesterday alone. Another five soldiers critically wounded. That means 13 IDF soldiers were killed in Gaza over just the last 48 hours. By far the deadliest weekend since the war began 11 weeks ago. The IDF chief of staff visited the southern Gaza city of Hamunis yesterday for a battleground assessment. General Herzai Levy said that Israel still has a lot of work to do. 152 Israeli soldiers have been killed now since the ground of operation began. Prime Minister Netanyahu spoke for nearly an hour yesterday with President Biden. Biden says he did not ask Netanyahu to reach a ceasefire at this time. Let's go now to IQF News correspondent Ariel Osirad who joins us near the Israel-Gaza border for more. Ariel, horrific news. The IDF confirming really just a short time ago this morning eight more soldiers killed in combat, 13 deaths this weekend alone. What can we learn from that about the state of the actual war on the ground? Indeed, Jeff, the war is in full steam and unfortunately a very difficult weekend for Israeli forces with as you mentioned 13 soldiers killed, eight of them on Saturday. This brings the death toll of Israeli soldiers since the ground operation began to 152. What this indicates is that there is still intensive fighting across the Gaza Strip. These casualties over the weekend came in the central and southern parts of the Gaza Strip where indeed the fighting is most intensive. But if we're looking at the nature of these attacks in which the soldiers were killed, we're talking about IEDs exploding on forces or anti-tank missiles fired at armored vehicles. And while the forces are taking their as many precautions as they can to protect the forces advancing mainly in armored vehicles, Hamas terrorists unfortunately have found every once in a while they find a weak spot in the in the protection. I mean, they've they target armored vehicles on a daily basis, but over the weekend it does appear that they managed to be more successful in their targeting of Israeli shore soldiers all the while fighting continues across the Gaza Strip, including northern parts where the IDF has said that its controls more substantial. But obviously the main focal point continues to be in the southern parts and mainly the southern city of Hanyunas. RL, does the IDF have full complete control of any area of Gaza at this point?  What does that mean in reality? The short answer, Jeff, to that question is no, the IDF cannot say that it has full control over any part of the Gaza Strip and that's mainly due to the fact that you have Gaza that's above ground and Gaza below ground and even if Gaza above ground or the certain areas above ground have been dismantled in terms of their military capabilities, almost everywhere across the Gaza Strip you have underground tunnel systems that you can have terrorists appear up in shafts even in an area that is under full IDF control carry out attack and then continue back down. That is why it's really a two-tier war. It's the above ground war. It's a below ground war. The IDF in areas under its control continue to dismantle, to take out a commission, many hundreds of these tunnel shafts. But until every single one is found and bombed basically, they could always be used against the forces. Unfortunately, this is the case in pretty much everywhere across the Gaza Strip. Ariel, thank you so much for that update live for us near the border. Thousands of Israelis braved a pouring rainstorm last night for a protest against the Israeli government and the lack of progress in a new hostage deal. Speakers at the demonstration included both loved ones of current hostages, also recently freed hostages who insist that the best way to get the rest of them out safely is another deal with Hamas not through military action. On the way to captivity, we saw things that still haunt me at night and in the middle of the day. You've all seen them on the apps, sites that are burned into my memory. Emma and Yuli, only three years old, with zero tools to deal with the sites and situations they experienced before and during captivity, will reveal to us in the distant future the scars of their hearts. Finding it quite hard not to totally despair. I've been holding strong for a long time and trying to think that good things can come for us in terms of hostages returning and at the moment we are subjected to the most horrific psychological warfare by Hamas. And we just came in order to identify ourselves with them and to support all the families of all the kidnapped men, women and children. And we hope that with our support there will be a bigger and harder pressure on the government of Israel to do more to bring back the kidnapped. Let's talk now with retired IDF Colonel Miri Aizen, Director now of the International Institute for Counterterrorism at Franklin University. Good to see you again as always, Miri. I want to ask about the war, the Israel Hamas war itself. The actual battles and ground conduct going on now 11 weeks into the war, is this becoming a quagmire? Quickly that is Israel in a position to actually have a decisive victory against Hamas? So I'm going to dive into the terms that you're using because you know academic etc and this is not an academic war. But Jeff put the pictures if you can in the meantime of what you were showing before when Ariel was talking about it. We are talking about urban warfare in the worst kind of situation for any kind of military worldwide. Not only is it urban warfare and every time you show the pictures you can see clearly that the pictures of the Gaza Strip, of the soldiers, the IDF soldiers acting in the Gaza Strip, in between buildings, on streets, all the different pictures that we see, there is no more difficult place to do battle in. In addition you have the underground area. Now I put those two together from the beginning we had said this is going to be a long war. It's not easy. What does decisive mean? How do you destroy hundreds of kilometers of tunnels? And now we're in it. It doesn't make it any easier but we need to be clear using the term decisive. There are two million people who are there. If we're decisive that's a lot more people that you are going to be caught up even in the Northern Gaza Strip where we have much more operational control. There are still hundreds of thousands of people who stay there. These are the numbers that we've talked about so that the Hamas terrorists themselves using that underground tunnel situation that you go from one to the other to the other. And I'm not saying it's never ending but that's why you have operational control but not decisive control. Oh even so far as to say Jeff that even when we do have full control they the Hamas terrorists will always have another shaft, another tunnel, another weapon. They have been preparing this for 15 years. They had 35,000 trained fighters. They have an enormous amount of weapons and that's what they're using. It doesn't mean that we should stop and it doesn't mean that we're not having a very harsh impact on Hamas, on their battalions, on the terrorists and the side of that also on the negotiations that have to do with hostages. Mary can the goals of the war be redefined? I mean just because of the amount of booby traps, IEDs, explosives, tunnel shafts still uncovered. I mean the threats are you can't even count how many threats to Israeli soldiers lives there are as they continue to expand their operations and as you mentioned this is something that will take a very very long time and there is no concrete tangible answer to winning the war. Should that change? Do we need to redefine a specific goal that would mean victory for the Israeli government? From my point of view and not right now because I think that for you and me as Israelis living here we need both goals. We need to bring the hostages back and there's no question that that is the sticky, it's torniest, most difficult issue, so emotional, so challenging every single day and we you and I living here need to destroy Hamas' capabilities. That doesn't mean destroying every single last tunnel. The thing that what we need to adjust to is that there's going to be stages in this war. It's going to be a long war. I don't think it will stay at the high intensity for there that much longer. That's perhaps the quagmire that you were talking about when it's full scale infantry tanks and all over different capabilities. I think that it will go to lower intensity. It's still a war when it's low intensity. I don't want to make anybody unhappy but we had a war of attrition that Egypt started against us that went on for a year and a half. Low intensity wars can go on for a long time and then you work systematically against again the above ground and the low ground trying as hard as you can to separate the civilians that the Hamas are part of from the Hamas terror fighters and to fight all of these different weapons and capabilities. Not an easy task. I want to bring into this conversation i-25 news. Senior correspondent as well Owen Alterman. I mean a horrific number. 13 soldiers killed this weekend in fighting. We're seeing growing use for casualties from IEDs, from booby traps, missiles as well. This might be a as Miri mentioned a long long slog of war. A lot of horror coming our way but this is I mean the numbers are just awful. That's above all else. The numbers that Israelis are waking up to now of how deadly this is raises a lot of questions about the conduct of the war and how it's actually going on the ground. Well a couple points Jeff you're right these are horrific numbers from the Israeli Republic's perspective but again still pales in comparison to the number of soldiers who were killed on October 7th itself. And again I think that focuses all of our minds on the fact that there is no alternative from Israel's perspective. Okay we can talk about the tactical questions of how the war could best be fought and get to that in a moment what Israel's options are for doing that. But at the end of the day if you compare the total number of soldiers who have been killed since the beginning of the war proper of the ground offensive you compare that to the number who lost their lives in October 7th it's still dwarfed by those in that initial day. And when you look at Jeff the cost of the war versus the cost of the alternative I think that starts to focus our minds. Look in terms of the casualties of soldiers let's be very honest here. This is an Israeli interest and Israeli interest only.   Avoiding Israeli military casualties is not an American interest let alone an interest of other governments around the world. So from the American perspective when you look again at the convict the calls last night I know we'll get to those between President Biden Prime Minister Netanyahu there's also one between Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Minister Yov Galant and the Americans talk about avoiding civilian casualties as we all know and of course they defer to Miri on this. But in wars there often is a balance right between protecting the lives of your soldiers and protecting the lives of the enemy's civilians well not the enemy's civilians they're civilians who are who are in the battlefield. And of course there's an international law that's meant to negotiate that balance. But ultimately within the gray area of international law negotiating that balance is ultimately up to Israel to do that. And that of course is part of the tension with the United States because the Israeli public as Jeff you correctly said cares a great deal if its soldiers die. Remember many of these soldiers Jeff not only are young men and women right who are in active duty. We also have many many tens of thousands of reservists people in their 40s are losing their lives in the Gaza Strip again husbands fathers. So the Israeli public cares a lot about this the United States does not it is not an American interest. So this is part of the tension with the United States and you're right it is possible it is possible that the rising number of casualties of soldiers is due of course in part to the fact that Israel is now operating in areas where civilians are present unlike in the northern part of the strip where so many had left following the Israeli recommendation suggestion order however you look at it. And part of it may be due may be due to adjustments made in Israeli operations because requests by the United States again the United States putting its finger on the scale of how that balance is struck between soldiers and civilians because of this in this narrow area the very very clear difference in interest between the American interest and the Israeli interest. You mentioned that the phone call between President Biden and Netanyahu they spoke yesterday according to reports for nearly the better part of an hour 50 minutes or so which is considered a long time between world leaders. I want to ask about something you said and asked directly that you know that Biden saying I did not call for ceasefire I'm not asking Netanyahu for a ceasefire I'm asking him to do more to protect civilian lives hearing that though doesn't that put Israeli lives in Gaza in danger. Maybe I mean of course maybe again I suspected in some cases it's more complicated than that but sure Jeff part of Israel's calculation in terms of how it balances and it is a balance right between protecting civilian lives protecting the lives of the soldiers right it has to operate within international law but again there's gray area there and you're right a 50 minute conversation with some very terse readouts on the other end right a very very terse readout from the Israeli Prime Minister's office saying only that they spoke that Netanyahu thanked Biden for America's support and then Netanyahu reiterated that Israel will carry out the war until all of the goals have been achieved and then on the Biden side and the White House side a bit longer statement but emphasizing entirely different points right that Biden asked to do everything possible to avoid civilian casualties to do to free hostages and also a strange sentence with a grammatical error and that's one of the reasons why it jumps out at you although not the only reason they discussed the Gaza war to include objectives and phasing so there's a bit of a grammatical error in there which is one of the reasons but not the only reason it jumps out Jeff the Biden readout does not reiterate that the where the United States stands on the objective and the goal to defeat Hamas does it's not there it doesn't mean there's a change in policy not every readout has included that and then we've seen over a few days later an American official come to the podium and reiterate American support for that in some way shape or form but it's certainly at the very least is not something that that the Biden administration that the White House wanted to emphasize here what they did want to emphasize is this idea of quote objectives and phasing the phasing part were obviously all aware the move as the Americans call it from high intensity to low intensity as Miri alluded to and and referred to but also the Americans using that word objectives right is there a question about how the Americans see the quote objectives of this war and is that different from how Netanyahu sees the objectives because again that was the one point essentially highlighted in the Israeli readout so again you look at these and it raises the question do these two men do these two countries disagree about what the specific objectives of the war should be and in particular the objective of how far Israel should go or needs to go in defeating Hamas what is that word defeating mean and does it mean two different things to these two different governments separate from the readouts the rather first readouts Biden in a very brief moment with a gaggle with reporters asked about it said I prefer to keep the details of the conversation private very terse answer also yeah two reporters as well mirror I want to ask you about something Olin mentioned which is the fact that all millions up to two million civilians at some point are in the central or southern Gaza strip now hundreds of thousands of families you know who don't live there are basically stuck there amid the ground offensive raising the danger of course for Israeli soldiers operating with military objectives in that area there's still an unanswered question about where those civilians will go what is their plan will they be moved back north will they be moved to an even smaller area you know what's going to happen with them from your perspective you know as a counter terrorism expert here how do you navigate that now we're talking about a lot more than 100 thousand in that sense I mean Israel essentially told over a million people to move from the north to the south and again I'm giving the numbers that are estimates that around 800,000 people left the northern Gaza strip and over 200,000 are still in the northern Gaza strip it's already just number wise it's an enormous amount of people and in that sense what you do in I think that there's this huge gap in the way that it's presented Israel has been very focused the entire time on as much as possible giving humanitarian aid when we talk about the pause and additional pause it's as if they don't get anything I think that there have been coordination I don't want to say cooperation to bring in humanitarian aid for those two million people who are in areas designated areas that Israel has stated every time on a map with flyers from the air blasting into their phones talking about the different ways that they can get in that doesn't make it nice and easy this is a war the whole discussion the wonderful discussion you had before with Owen is I want to remind everybody this is a war it's an in-war you can choose also to try to achieve the same objectives through diplomacy so for example you could still have the same objectives but to achieve them doesn't have to be high intensity or low intensity can you destroy Hamas capabilities without going in and conquering all of the Gaza strip and destroying it physically these are questions that we are now addressing none of us wanted to go into the Gaza strip in the way we are right now that's the direct result of a change a massive change that happened in all of Israel from low to high after the horrific massacre of October 7th so I bring us back into that question of how you do such things you take it one step at a time you let the civilians and you constantly do it it's every single day just nobody talks about it that in Arabic they're told where to go to where the tent areas are where the humanitarian aid is they don't all go there and it doesn't make it any easier we're in winter it's not pretty but it's saving their lives I also want to get your take here merely on the situation the increasing attacks from Houthi rebels and the perilous nature of shipping in the red sea the US military says one of its warships was targeted by four attack drones fired in from Yemen in Houthi controlled areas the US destroyer shot down the drones no American injuries are reported among service members US ships are in the southern red sea as part of a coalition of international nations trying to protect shipping lanes from attacks three other tankers targeted by drones in attacks this weekend both in the red sea and also an attack in the Indian Ocean two tanker suffered direct hits they had significant structural damage there have been 15 attacks on ships in the red sea in just the last three weeks the US says and washington directly blames Iran for the attack on the tanker in the Indian Ocean Iran's foreign minister is denying any connection to any of the Houthi attacks Yemen has officially declared its position its official spokesman repeats their actions daily this is really and completely a Yemeni move in support of Gaza and this American accusation is a baseless accusation against the Islamic Republic while our side in supporting Palestine is clear the actions taken by others should not be blamed on Iran's proxy groups we do not have any proxy group in the area can you tell me mirror your assessment here of the growing number of attacks the increased you know the aggression here that we're seeing from attacks out of Yemen and now Iran being directly linked to an attack in the Indian Ocean which is certainly a more rare event what does this mean is the US becoming ensnare perhaps in the growing regional conflict over shipping there's no question that we're already in that this isn't about to begin the attacks by the different Iranian proxies in Iraq in Syria against the US in the Gulf against the US and the growing one from Yemenite Houthi Shiite Iranian proxy that's a long term I don't usually do this Jeff but I want to read you a tweet that Khamenei who is the religious leader put out yesterday never doubts that the hostile you super Zionist regime will be wiped off the world's map one day God willing this is a definite part of the future we hope you the youth will see this with your own eyes Khamenei yesterday December 23rd towards Christmas in the world that's his message and when you look at the Houthis who are supplied trained completely in Iranian proxy who have been very active throughout the Red Sea area and in that sense it's like they opened up the genie and now it is way out there it's both what Iran wants not to have the focus on Iran but to have an active participation in what Khamenei just said the destruction of the Zionist usurper I want to remind everybody that to you and me that's Israel that's the terms that Iran uses this is Khamenei yesterday not the foreign minister who's to me just you know he can talk a lot when you listen to Khamenei the religious leader we are talking here about a religious vision that includes Hezbollah includes the Houthis includes other proxies around the world they are active and I see them slowly upping their act we all need to be disturbed of the United States is on board this is international shipping it is going to impact all of the economy of the world oh and the US taking great care as in the last two months to avoid being kind of ensnared in a growing regional conflict according I mean we have this new report you know from the the about the US and Biden asking Netanyahu with their own intelligence not to escalate into a second front in Lebanon way back in early October now the US though being attacked it ships in the red sea directly by these drones the US blaming Iran for an attack in the Indian Ocean where does the US fit into this into this escalating tension in the region well Jeff at the end of the day differently in the issues of the red sea and differently in that issue of that Israeli linked ship in the Indian Ocean what do I mean when you talk about the red sea is Mary Eisen just alluded to 10 to 15 percent of the world's ships pass through the red sea so when Israeli diplomats go out and argue this is not an Israeli problem this issue the Babel Mondab in the red sea this is a global problem it's absolutely true it affects the global economy and there's the question that I don't think has a straightforward answer what is Iran thinking that it is doing what is around thinking it's doing it's not targeting Israel it's targeting the global economy does does Iran think somehow that it's going to mean these countries with a gun going to pressure Israel to hold back in the Gaza war well maybe but I think that's a huge misreading of the balance of power it will not end well for Iran Iran taking on the global economy is not going to end well for Iran I don't think it's going to lead to pressure on Israel I think it's going to lead to pressure first and foremost on the Houthis but also on Iran the story of the Israeli linked ship in the Indian Ocean near India is very different Jeff because geographically that's not connected to the sea lanes with 10 to 15 percent of the world's ship passing through them that's out in the ocean this is a ship that's linked to Israel that's targeted to Israel this is not a global problem this is an Israeli problem and again the drone reportedly launched from Iran very very interesting and as you correctly said very very unusual how is Israel going to handle attacks on Israeli ships in areas in the waterways that typically geographically are not the world's problem where geographically it's Israel's problem where the targeting is more narrow is narrower on ships that really are linked to Israel and not shooting in all directions as the Houthis foolishly I think seem to have done over the last month or so and particularly when the drones themselves are launched from Iran you know Iran is taking on risk here Jeff once a drone if Iran is acting through proxies it may be harder under international law for Israel to then pull back the veil if you will and attack Iran but when Iran is attacking Israel and Israeli targets by itself well under international law Israel may have have a right to respond to that to respond directly on Iranian territory something we have never seen publicly okay so that again opens up Iran to risk but in certain a certain way Jeff if Israel is willing to take on the risk of expanding a conflict to Iran itself it offers a route for Israel to do that which Israel has not had in the past yeah so again very much Iran playing with fire uh but puts Israel in a different situation in the Indian Ocean than it is in the Red Sea oh and thanks for that analysis me guys and thank you as well for being with us here tonight for news as we tackle the ongoing threats here to Israel and Israeli security from around the region more live reporting coming up more updates stay with us we'll be right back Israel is in a state of war families completely done down in their beds we have no idea where she has our soldiers are fighting on the front line but the general perception is something that certainly needs to to be fought as well 24 Israel bajo ataque news 24 en español trae el análisis y la información de los acontecimientos de la guerra espadas de hierro entrevistas exclusivas reportes desde la zona de guerra la reacción de los países hispano parlantes news 24 el único medio en español que te mantiene informado y conectado con la comunidad latina en israel news 24 únicamente en i24 news news this hour for the latest live updates from israel on the israel homas war and other threats from across the middle east we begin in gaza a horrific and deadly weekend as the israeli ground offensive in central gaza expands the idf says eight soldiers were killed by hamas yesterday alone another five soldiers critically wounded that means 13 idf soldiers were killed in gaza over just the last 48 hours by far the deadliest weekend since the war began 11 weeks ago the idf chief of staff visited the southern gaza city of khan yunus yesterday for a battleground assessment general herzah levy said that israel still has a lot of work to do 152 israeli soldiers have been killed now since the ground of operation began prime minister netanyahu spoke for nearly an hour yesterday with president biden biden says he did not ask netanyahu to reach a ceasefire at this time let's go now to i24 news correspondent ariel osirad who joins us near the israel gaza border for more ariel horrific news the idf confirming really just a short time ago this morning eight more soldiers killed in combat 13 deaths this weekend alone what can we learn from that about the state of the actual war on the ground indeed jeff the war is in full steam and unfortunately a very difficult weekend for israeli forces with as you mentioned 13 soldiers killed eight of them on saturday this brings the death toll of israeli soldiers since the ground operation began to 152 and what this indicates is that there is still an intensive fighting across the gaza strip most of these casualties over the weekend came in the central and southern parts of the gaza strip where indeed the fighting is most intensive but if we're looking at the nature of these attacks in which the soldiers were killed we're talking about ied's exploding on forces or anti-tank missiles fired at armored vehicles and while the forces are taking their as many precautions as they can to to protect the forces advancing mainly in armored vehicles hamas terrorists unfortunately have found every once in a while they find a weak spot in the in the protection i mean they've they they target armored vehicles on a daily basis but over the weekend it does appear that they managed to be more successful in their targeting of israeli shore soldiers all the while fighting fighting continues across the gaza strip including northern parts where where the idea has said that it's it's controls more substantial but obviously the main focal point continues to be in the southern parts and mainly the southern city of arel does the idea have full complete control of any area of gaza at this point i mean we hear words like operational control things like that what does that mean in reality the short answer jeff to that question is no the idea cannot say that it has full control over any part of the gaza strip and that's mainly due to the fact that you have a gaza that's above ground and gaza below ground and even if gaza above ground or the certain areas above ground have been dismantled in terms of their military capabilities almost everywhere across the gaza strip you have underground tunnel systems that you can have terrorists appear up in shafts even in an area that is under full idf control carry out attack and then continue back down that is why it's a it's really a two tier war it's the above ground war it's a below ground war the idf in areas under its control continue to dismantle to to take out a commission many hundreds of these tunnel shafts but uh until every single one is found and uh and and bombed basically they could always be used against the forces unfortunately this is the case in pretty much everywhere across the gaza strip Ariel thank you so much for that update live for us near the border thousands of Israelis braved a pouring rainstorm last night for a protest against the Israeli government and the lack of progress in a new hostage deal speakers at the demonstration included both loved ones of current hostages also recently freed hostages who insist that the best way to get the rest of them out safely is another deal with Hamas not through military action on the way to captivity we saw things that still haunt me at night and in the middle of the day you've all seen them on the apps sites that are burned into my memory emma and yuli only three years old with zero tools to deal with the sites and situations they experienced before and during captivity will reveal to us in the distant future the scars of their hearts finding it quite hard not to totally despair um i've been holding strong for a long time and trying to think that good things can come for us in terms of hostages returning and at the moment we are subjected to the most horrific um psychological warfare by Hamas and we just came in order to identify ourselves with them and to support all the families of all the kidnapped men women and children and we hope that with our support there will be a bigger and harder pressure on the government of Israel to do more to bring back the goodness let's talk now with retired idf colonel mary izan director now of the international institute for counterterrorism at right wing university good to see you again as always mary i want to ask about the war the israel hamas war itself the actual battles and ground conduct going on now 11 weeks into the war is this becoming a quagmire quickly that is israel in a position to actually have a decisive victory against kamas so i'm going to dive into the terms that you're using because you know academic etc and this is not an academic war but jeff put the pictures if you can in the meantime of what you were showing before when ariel was talking about it we are talking about urban warfare in the worst kind of situation for any kind of military worldwide not only is it urban warfare and every time you show the pictures you can see clearly that the pictures of the gozel strip of the soldiers the idea of soldiers acting in the gozel strip in between buildings on streets all the different pictures that we see there is no more difficult place to to do battle in in addition you have the underground area now i put those two together from the beginning we had said this is going to be a long war it's not easy what does decisive mean how do you destroy hundreds of kilometers of tunnels and now we're in it it doesn't make it any easier but we need to be clear using the term decisive there are two million people who are there if we're decisive that's a lot more people that you were going to be caught up even in the northern gozel strip where we have much more operational control there are still hundreds of thousands of people who stay there these are the numbers that we've talked about so that the kamas terrorists themselves using that underground tunnel situation that you go from one to the other to the other and i'm not saying it's never ending but that's why you have operational control but not decisive control oh even so far as to say jeff and even when we do have full control they're all they the kamas terrorists will always have another shaft another tunnel another weapon they have been preparing this for 15 years they had 35 000 trained fighters they have an enormous amount of weapons and that's what they're using it doesn't mean that we should stop and it doesn't mean that we're not having an a very harsh impact on kamas on their battalions on the terrorists and the side of that also on the negotiations and have to do with the hostages mary can the goals of the war be redefined i mean just because of the amount of booby traps ied's explosives uh tunnel shafts still uncovered i mean the threats can are are you can't even count how many threats to israeli soldiers lives there are as they continue to expand their operations and as you mentioned this is something that will take a very very long time and there is no concrete tangible answer to winning the war should that change do we need to redefine a specific goal that would mean victory for the israeli government from my point of view not right now because i think that for you and me as israelis living here we need both goals we need to bring the hostages back and there's no question that that is the sticky it's the horniest most difficult issue so emotional so challenging every single day and we you and i live in here need to destroy kamas's capabilities that doesn't mean destroying every single last tunnel i think that what we need to adjust to is that there's going to be stages in this war it's going to be alone war i don't think it will stay at the high intensity for there that much longer that's perhaps the quagmire that you were talking about when it's full scale infantry tanks on and all over different capabilities i think that it'll go to lower intensity it's still a war when it's low intensity i don't want to make anybody unhappy but you know we had a war of attrition that egypt started against us that went on for a year and a half low intensity wars can go on for a long time and then you work systematically against again the above ground and the low ground trying as hard as you can to separate the civilians that the hamas are part of from the you know hamas terror fighters and to fight all of these different weapons and capabilities not an easy task yeah i want to bring into this conversation i went for new senior corresponded as well oh an ultraman i mean a horrific number 13 soldiers killed this weekend in fighting we're seeing growing use for casualties from ied's from booby traps missiles as well this might be a as miri mentioned a long long slog of a war a lot of horror coming our way but this is i mean the numbers are just awful that's above all else the numbers that israelans are waking up to now of how deadly this is raises a lot of questions about the conduct of the war and how it's actually going on the ground well a couple points jeff you're right these are horrific numbers from the israeli republic's perspective but again still pales in comparison to the number of soldiers who were killed on october 7th itself and again i think that focuses all of our minds on the fact that there is no alternative from israel's perspective okay we can talk about the tactical questions of how the war could best be fought and get to that in a moment what israel's options are for doing that but at the end of the day if you compare the total number of soldiers who have been killed since the beginning of the war proper of the ground offensive you compare that to the number who lost their lives in october 7th it's still dwarfed by those in that initial day and when you look at jeff the cost of the war versus the cost of the alternative i think that starts to focus our minds look in terms of the casualties of soldiers let's be very honest here this is an israeli interest in israeli interest only people in washington and the biden administration do not care if israeli soldiers die they do not care if israeli soldiers die avoiding israeli military casualties is not an american interest let alone an interest of other governments around the world so from the american perspective when you look again at at the convict the calls last night i know we'll get to those between president biden prime minister netanyahu there's also one between secretary of state antony blinkin and defense minister yohan gallant and the americans talk about avoiding civilian casualties as we all know and of course they defer to miri on this but in wars there often is a balance right between protecting the lives of your soldiers and protecting the lives of the enemy's civilians well not the enemy civilians there are civilians who are who are in the battlefield and of course there's an international law that's meant to negotiate that balance but ultimately within the gray area of international law negotiating that balance it's ultimately up to israel to do that and that of course is part of the tension with the united states because the israeli public as jeff you correctly said cares a great deal if its soldiers die remember many of these soldiers jeff not only are our young men and women right who are in active duty we also have many many tens of thousands of reservists people in their 40s are losing their lives in the gaza strip again husbands fathers uh so the israeli public cares a lot about this the united states does not it is not an american interest so this is part of the tension with the united states and you're right it is possible it is possible that the rising number of casualties of soldiers is due of course in part to the fact that israel is now operating in areas where civilians are present unlike in the northern part of the strip where so many had left following the israeli a recommendation suggestion order however you look at it and part of it may be due may be due to adjustments made in israeli operations because of requests by the united states again the united states putting its finger on the scale of how that balance is struck between soldiers and civilians because of this in this narrow area the very very clear difference in interest between the american interest and the israeli interest you mentioned that phone the phone call between president bayi and netanyahu they spoke yesterday according to reports for nearly the better part of an hour 50 minutes or so which is considered a long time between world leaders i want to ask for something you said and asked directly that you know that uh by then saying i did not call for ceasefire i'm not asking netanyahu for ceasefire i'm asking him to do more to protect civilian lives hearing that though doesn't that put israeli lives in gaza in danger maybe i mean of course maybe again i suspect it in some cases it's more complicated than that but sure jeff part of israel's calculation in terms of how it balances and it is a balance right between protecting civilian lives protecting the lives of the soldiers right it has or has to operate within international law but again there's gray area there and you're right a 50 minute conversation with some very terse readouts on the other end right a very very terse readout from the israeli prime minister's office saying only that they spoke that netanyahu thanked biden for america support and then it's now reiterated that israel will carry out the war until all of the goals have been achieved and then on the biden side and the white house side a bit longer statement but emphasizing entirely different points right that biden asked to do everything possible to avoid civilian casualties to do to free hostages and also a strange sentence with a grammatical error and that's one of the reasons why it jumps out at you although not the only reason they they discussed the gaza war to include objectives and phasing so there's a bit of a grammatical error in there which is one of the reasons but not the only reason it jumps out jeff the biden readout does not reiterate that the where the united state stands on the objective and the goal to defeat hamas does it's not there it doesn't mean there's a change in policy not every readout has included that and then we've seen over a few days later an american official come to the podium and reiterate american support for that in some way shape or form but it's certainly at the very least is not something that that the biden administration that the white house wanted to emphasize here what they did want to emphasize is this idea of quote objectives and phasing the phasing part were obviously all aware the move as the americans call it from high intensity to low intensity as miri alluded to and and referred to but also the americans using that word objectives right is there a question about how the americans see the quote objectives of this war and is that different from how nitin yow sees the objectives because again that was the one point essentially highlighted in the israeli readout so again you look at these and it raises the question do these two men do these two countries disagree about what the specific objectives of the war should be and in particular the objective of how far israel should go or needs to go in defeating hamas what is that word defeating mean and does it mean two different things to these two different governments separate from the readouts the rather terse readouts biden in a very brief moment with a gaggle with reporters asked about it said i prefer to keep the details of the conversation private very terse answer also yeah two reporters as well miri i want to ask you about something ola mentioned which is the fact that all millions up to two million civilians at some point are in the central or southern gaza strip now hundreds of thousands of families you know who don't live there are basically stuck there amid the ground offensive raising the danger of course for israeli soldiers operating with military objectives in that area there's still an answer question about the where those civilians will go what is their plan will they be moved back north will they be moved to an even smaller area you know what's going to happen with them from your perspective you know as a counterterrorism expert here how do you navigate that now we're talking about a lot more than a hundred thousand in that sense i mean israel essentially told over a million people to move from the north to the south and again i'm giving the numbers that are estimates that around 800 000 people left the northern gaza strip and over 200 000 are still in the northern gaza strip it's already just number wise it's an enormous amount of people and in that sense what you do and i think that there's this huge gap in the way that it's presented israel has been very focused the entire time on as much as possible giving humanitarian aid when we talk about the pause and additional pause it's as if they don't get anything i think that there have been coordination i don't want to say cooperation to bring in humanitarian aid for those two million people who are in areas designated areas that israel has stated every time on a map with flyers from the air blasting into their phones talking about the different ways that they can get in that doesn't make it nice and easy this is a war the whole discussion the wonderful discussion you had before with oan is i want to remind everybody this is a war it's an in war you can choose also to try to achieve the same objectives through diplomacy so for example you could still have the same objectives but to achieve them doesn't have to be high intensity or low intensity can you destroy hamasa's capabilities without going in and conquering all of the gaza strip and destroying it physically these are questions that we are now addressing none of us wanted to go into the gaza strip in the way we all right now that's the direct result of a change of a massive change that happened in all of israel from low to high after the horrific massacre of october 7 so i bring us back into that question of how you do such things you take it one step at a time let the civilians and you constantly do it it's every single day just nobody talks about it that in arabic they're told where to go to where the tent areas are where the humanitarian aid is they don't all go there and it doesn't make it any easier we're in winter it's not pretty but it's saving their lives i also want to get your take here merely on the situation the increasing attacks from hoofy rebels and the perilous nature of shipping in the red sea the us military says one of its warships was targeted by four attack drones fired in from yemen in hoofy controlled areas the us destroyer shot down the drones no american injuries are reported among service members us ships are in the southern red sea as part of a coalition of international nations trying to protect shipping lanes from attacks three other tankers targeted by drones in attacks this weekend both in the red sea and also an attack in the indian ocean two tankers suffered direct hits they had significant structural damage there have been 15 attacks on ships in the red sea in just the last three weeks the us says and washington directly blames iran for the attack on the tanker in the indian ocean iran's foreign minister is denying any connection to any of the hoofy attacks in k yemen yemen has officially declared its position its official spokesman repeats their actions daily this is really and completely a yemeny move in support of gaza and this american accusation is a baseless accusation against the islamic republic while our side in supporting palestine is clear the actions taken by others should not be blamed on iran's proxy groups we do not have any proxy group in the area can you tell me mirror your assessment here of the growing number of attacks the increased uh you know the the aggression here that we're seeing from attacks out of yemen and now iran being directly linked to an attack in the indian ocean which is certainly a more rare event what does this mean is the us becoming ensnare perhaps in the growing regional conflict over shipping there's no question that we're already in that this isn't about to begin the attacks by the different iranian proxies in iraq in syria against the us in the gulf against the us and the growing one from the yemenite hoti sheite iranian proxy that's a long term i don't usually do this jeff but i want to read you a tweet that khamenei who is the religious leader put out yesterday never doubts that the hostile you super zionist regime will be wiped off the world's map one day god willing this is a definite part of the future we hope you the youth will see this with your own eyes khamenei yesterday december 23rd towards christmas in the world that's his message and when you look at the hutis who are supplied trained completely an iranian proxy who have been very active throughout the red sea area and in that sense it's like they opened up the genie and now it is way out there it's both what iran wants not to have the focus on iran but to have an active participation in what khamenei just said the destruction of the zionist usurper i want to remind everybody that's you and me that's israel that's the terms that iran uses this is khamenei yesterday not the foreign minister who's to me just uh you know he can talk a lot when you listen to khamenei the religious leader we are talking here about a religious vision that includes khizballah includes the hutis includes other proxies around the world they are active and i see them slowly upping their act we all need to be disturbed the united states is on board this is international shipping it is going to impact all of the economy of the world oh and the u.s taking great care in the last two months to avoid being kind of ensnared in a growing regional conflict according i mean we have this new report you know from the uh the uh about the u.s and biden asking netanyahu with their own intelligence not to escalate into a second front in lebanon way back in early october now the us though being attacked it ships in the red sea directly uh by these drones the u.s blaming iran for an attack in the indian ocean where does the us fit into this into this escalating tension in the region well jeff at the end of the day differently in the issues of the red sea and differently in that issue of that israeli linked ship in the indian ocean what do i mean when you talk about the red sea is miry eisen just alluded to 10 to 15 percent of the world's ships pass through the red sea so when israeli diplomats go out and argue this is not an israeli problem this issue the babel mandab in the red sea this is a global problem it's absolutely true it affects the global economy and there's the question that i don't think has a straightforward answer what is iran thinking that it is doing what is around thinking it is doing it's not targeting israel it's targeting the global economy does does iran think somehow that it's going to mean these countries with a gun going to pressure israel to hold back in the gaza war well maybe but i think that's a huge misreading of the balance of power will not end well for iran iran taking on the global economy is not going to end well for iran i don't think it's going to lead to pressure on israel i think it's going to lead to pressure first and foremost on the houthis but also on iran the story of the israeli linked ship in the indian ocean near india is very different jeff because geographically that's not connected to the sea lanes with 10 to 15 percent of the world's ship passing through them that's out in the ocean this is a ship that's linked to israel that's targeted to israel this is not a global problem this is an israeli problem and again the drone reportedly launched from iran very very interesting and as you correctly said very very unusual how is israel going to handle attacks on israeli ships in areas in the waterways that simply geographically are not the world's problem where geographically it's israel's problem where the targeting is more narrow is narrower on ships that really are linked to israel and not shooting in all directions as the houthis foolishly i think seem to have done over the last month or so and particularly when the drones themselves are launched from iran you know iran is taking on riskier jeff once a drone if iran is acting through proxies it may be harder under international law for israel to then pull back the veil if you will and attack iran but when iran is attacking israel and israeli targets by itself well under international israel may have have a right to respond to that to respond directly on iranian territory something we have never seen publicly okay so that again opens up iran to risk but in a certain way jeff if israel is willing to take on the risk of expanding a conflict to iran itself it offers a route for israel to do that which israel has not had in the past so again very much iran playing with fire but puts israel in a different situation in the indian ocean than it is in the red sea oh and thanks for that analysis me guys and thank you as well for being with us here at night for news as we tackle the ongoing threats here to israel and israeli security from around the region more live reporting coming up more updates stay with us we'll be right back to your people in rd access to our website rechargas.tis.com.b select rechargas and type the number you want to place the recharge also they receive the double balance in rechargas of eight dollars or more altis the global network of the dominicans israel is in a state of war families completely done down in their beds we have no idea where she has our soldiers are fighting on the front lines but the general perception is something that certainly needs to to be fought as well morning for the latest live updates from israel i mean israel hamas war and other threats from across the middle east we begin in gaza a difficult morning in israel as the israeli ground offensive in central gaza expands this morning the idf says eight idf soldiers were killed in hamas by hamas yesterday five others are in critical condition after being wounded that means 13 soldiers were killed in gaza over just the last 48 hours this is by far the deadliest weekend since the war began 11 weeks ago the idf chief of staff visited the southern gaza city of khanunis for a battleground assessment yesterday the general hertzo alevi said that israel still has a lot of work to do prime minister benjamin nithinyahu spoke for nearly an hour yesterday with president biden biden says he did not ask nithinyahu to reach a ceasefire at this time but his readout did specifically mention a discussion on the operational goals of the war thousands of israelis braved a pouring rainstorm last night for a protest against the israeli government and the lack of progress in a new hostage deal speakers at the demonstration included both loved ones of current hostages and also recently freed hostages who insist the best way at this point to get the others out safely is another deal with hamas not expanded military action on the way to captivity we saw things that still haunt me at night and in the middle of the day you've all seen them on the apps sites that are burned into my memory emma and yuli only three years old with zero tools to deal with the sites and situations they experienced before and during captivity will reveal to us in the distant future the scars of their hearts and we just came in order to identify ourselves with them and to support all the families of all the kidnapped men women and children and we hope that with our support there will be a bigger and harder pressure on the government of israel to do more to bring back the kidnapped with me in studios i-20 news senior correspondent on ultraman and daniel shek the director of diplomacy with the hostage and missing families forum and a former israeli ambassador as well to france thanks so much gentlemen for being with me in studio daniel i'm going to start with you is there any progress in securing a new hostage deal we understand from reports that there is a dialogue there is ongoing with kataria interlocutors but there's not progressing uh when you speak with families what is their sense of what this means in the days ahead well just first of all jeff just to be clear the families of the hostages don't are not part of the negotiation they don't negotiate with chamazo with kata but they hear the report that there's no actual progress well yeah they hear reports not necessarily reports that are more detailed than what you and owen see in the media it's one of the problems ongoing is feeling of not insufficient communication between the families of hostages and the government but that's a different story the bottom line is that there seems to be no progress and so you know that together with the just the clock ticking and day after day passing just creates we're just seeing the the the clock on on hostage square it it just augments the feeling of frustration of impatience of fear panic for some and when you look at the rally yesterday the eighth consecutive week with one specialty this time it was raining and it was cold and there was not one person on that square wasn't thinking about the rain and the cold in gaza much worse conditions than when you come to demonstrate what's your answer to those in israel who of course earnestly desire above all else to have the hostages home but say that the price at this point may be too high that said war and the sticking points for what hamas is demanding at this point to free more hostages in a deal is simply too high i say what anybody who wants a negotiation to succeed would say try again you you know a negotiation isn't just a one-time exchange of positions and then you go home it's not working this time and i can understand that there are situations where negotiation is where the demands are unreasonable unreasonably high etc it could happen you just keep going and you find ways to put pressure on your interlocutor and to make them change the the first deal more than a month ago didn't come up didn't just emerge out of nothing you know just sat down for a moment and exchange positions and say okay that's fine it took a while it took a long time it took a real negotiation took a lot of pressure on kathar and a lot of kathari pressure on hamas this has to go on there has that there can be no pause in the efforts to reach an agreement i want to bring into this conversation our correspondent aerial osir on who was along the israel gaza border right now for an update i know a horrible news to wake up to this morning of course so many soldier deaths do we know how they were killed by hamas and perhaps what it indicates about progress on the actual battlefields throughout the gaza strip right jeff eight soldiers killed marking a weekend of 13 casualties among i df troops perhaps the most uh the deadliest weekend of the forces in gaza since the ground operation began raising the toll to 152 and as you i mean regarding your question how this happened i mean it's we're talking about exchanges of fire different operations in central and southern gaza the vast majority of these casualties either from ied these exploding near forces or near armed vehicles or anti tank uh missiles launched at these armored vehicles now the vast majority of these attacks come out with the result with no injuries or casualties and many of them are thwarted but it's the few that do manage to be uh deadly and uh and the idf is unsuccessful in thwarted them look this comes as the ground operation is as widespread it has been since began the idf saying that just over the past 24 hours at least 200 targets have been struck from the air from the sea from artillery on the ground and a lot of these targets are continued to be in northern gaza main areas that the idf has said it is uh that they're under its control some of these places uh almost every home that is attributed to hamas is linked to hamas you find inside weapons explosives some in near schools near mosques in one of the clinics near in northern gaza they found suicide vests adjusted to the size of of miners and so this illustrates the challenge that idf troops have to face across the gaza strip but obviously north south the fighting continues very severely we have the idf chief of staff are all visiting the gaza strip yesterday amid all of these firefights and and deadly ambushes on soldiers saying there is still a lot of work left to be done is there a sense on the morale uh both within the fighting troops the fighting forces in gaza and even in general within israeli society as this campaign only intensifies and expands and it's 11th week and the casualty count grows higher look the understanding was that this is not going to be a short and easy battle to fight and as the the campaign continues this is only the second phase of the fighting now the understanding is that morale among troops is very very high given that they understand the importance of this war the necessity of it this is not a war by choice but this is a war that was imposed upon israel and it's there uh it's it's it's it's in their time to to take a stand but as for the continuation of this there are a lot of questions being raised among the public whether israel can even reach the goals of completely toppling Hamas militarily the understanding is that this will not be done in this current phase the next phase will be uh in in in a few weeks a couple months time perhaps uh easing up in the presence of forces on the ground but in indeed continuing uh incursions on a daily basis similar to the model that we're seeing in the northern part of the west bank or pretty much across the west bank and so the goal right now is to be is to establish a foothold to knock down a lot of the battalions a lot of the fighting forces on the ground but there's a very clear understanding among israeli and military political and military leadership that this will not end soon that this is only one step in many steps in the in in the goal ultimately to defeat Hamas but one that will not be over soon aerial thank you so much for that report here uh stay safe for us as you continue your reporting and analysis along the border back here in studio oh and you before we came to air earlier this morning we had a little discussion i could see the confused look on your face i'll explain don't worry at all we had a discussion that i believe there's probably happening across millions of tables in israel today which is what is the goal the the goal of the war and we discussed you know the interpretation of victory what is victory well maybe it's destroying Hamas's ability to rule that they will not be in control with the government ruling over the people the population of Gaza but is it the military goal above all else that they can't fire rockets anymore that israelis will live safely above in the Gaza envelope and elsewhere in israel without ever worrying about a Hamas attack again whatever that has to be the primary this discussion goes back and forth and still unclear what a primary objective is the primary objective and it does appear those indications in israel and chiefly among allies of the united states that there's patience is running out yeah well listen jeff i think both in both in israel and in the united states that people have gone back to being sloppy in the way that this is talked about if people were ever clean you know in the opening days of the war i was very insistent in this studio of how important it was that there be a very very clearly defined objective and we don't just go go rest back on platitudes about delivering a blow to Hamas and destroying Hamas verbs that have no actual meaning in practice that are empty slogans and how important it was for the government to go before the cameras and commit itself to a definable measurable goal and objective for the war we mostly got that at a certain stage and i think still get it to a large degree of it ending Hamas's effective military control of the Gaza Strip and significantly destroying downgrading its military capabilities those i think track fairly closely the original decision of the israeli cabinet for example and they're often what we hear from the podium although again sometimes government speakers both in israel and frankly in the united states as well fall black into those platitudes again and it's more disciplined moments jeff you're absolutely right the biden administration uses the words removing the threat so that october 7th can never happen again that's something very different than ending Hamas's effective control over the Gaza Strip and even there the united even there biden administration's folks who will don't always stick to that text and are often go go in different directions and you're right that the readout of president biden's call with prime minister netanyahu last night on the white house side didn't make reference to what the objective is in terms of degrading destroying Hamas it simply said that those objectives are part of the two leaders discussions which raises the question but whether there is a difference of opinion even more so than in the past between the two leaders and how they see it as i see it the objective is and should be not only should be in my opinion is number one ending Hamas's effective control over the territory of the Gaza Strip such that Hamas does not govern the Gaza Strip that if you are paying your taxes in the Gaza Strip you are not paying your taxes to a Hamas run government if there is a police officer on the street giving a ticket for a traffic violation the Gaza Strip that is not a police officer who is getting paid by Hamas the education system the head of the medical system and so forth not run by a government under Hamas's control that's number one and number two significantly very significantly downgrading Hamas's military capabilities again it won't necessarily be down to zero Hamas cannot be destroyed as the cliche goes and i agree with it the idea of Hamas certainly cannot be destroyed by the way i don't think that ever was an objective in this war and when it's cast an Israeli objective it's often a straw man in arguments was never an objective of the war that i do think those two definable measurable objectives in my opinion still achievable and still achievable at a cost that Israel will be willing to bear in terms of its own society and in terms of its diplomacy but again it does that do remain to be seen and the house of getting there and certainly the timeline very much very much in the air Daniel on that question on the timeline we have the us speaking now openly about phases of the war you know popularly referred to as the high intensity phase which is now the significant ground operations which are expanding and also then the lower intensity phase who knows if there's additional phases after that this is talk of a war that will last months if not years we have many guests and that analysts who say this is a war of attrition that may last years patients are within Israeli society for that what do you make of of where this goes well first of all i have to say that i wonder if owen will contradict me that although he's hearing more precise objectives i think from the politicians point of view it's very useful not to set i agree with that completely by the way to yeah to i'm i suspected you did so i allow myself to include you in it they don't the politicians want to keep it as vague as possible because they know all too well that you can't always achieve the precise objectives that you set there are other players here maybe israel's israeli societies patients will not run out but the patients of the biden administration will and maybe a situation on the ground will dictate something so i think there's a sort of a useful veil of ambiguity that that will remain but i have to say one thing that owen didn't say and that is the following the war started with a tremendous failure of the israeli state to do its job which is to protect its citizens and therefore the third objective on the list has to be to put this right to make this right again and one of the ways you have to say it is to bring back each and every hostage was taken on october 7th you can't consider it a win if you even leave one dead body in gaza by the way that is clearly said as an objective but the podium both in cheer with jews will amend in washington uh so i think to that degree the government has been extremely clear other threats continue to mount here across the region to israeli security the u.s. military says one of its warships that is part of an international coalition guarding shipping lanes in the red sea was targeted by four attack drones fired out of yemen in hoofy controlled areas the u.s. destroyer shot down the four drones no american service injuries are reported three other tankers were targeted this weekend too by explosive drones this weekend both in the red sea and in the indian ocean two tankers suffered direct hits and had significant structural damage there have been at least 15 attacks now on commercial ships in the red sea in just the last three weeks attributed to hoofy rebels rather indiscriminately perhaps firing missiles or launching suicide drones at passing tankers but perhaps the bigger story now is this attack in the indian ocean on a librarian flag the israeli owned ship the u.s. is concretely blaming iran for launching a one-way suicide drone iran's foreign minister not denying that allegation but does say iran is not responsible for the red sea attacks yemen has officially declared its position its official spokesman repeats their actions daily this is really and completely a yemeny move in support of gaza and this american accusation is a baseless accusation against the islamic republic while our side in supporting palestine is clear the actions taken by others should not be blamed on iran's proxy groups we do not have any proxy group in the area with me now is dr. mayer javin done far an iran lecturer at reichman university in televiv may i'm good to see you again talk to me a little bit perhaps about this attack separate from the red sea separate from the straight there this is in the indian ocean out you know in the middle of nowhere far away from everyone that's a play out here in the middle east this was an attack on a tanker that the u.s. and israel are specifically blaming iran that this one-way drone comes out of iran to attack the ship what do you make of the allegation and perhaps the timeline here what factors may have gone in domestically in iran on a decision to strike now perhaps first of all jeff is good to have you back at i-24 um now with regards to this attack in near near india and the attacks in yemen let me put this as part of the overall strategy of iran before i i talk to them specifically where they fit in terms of the overall strategy for the islamic republic of iran right now the strategy is to keep the current war between israel and hamas going to keep it going as long as possible why because the iranians are concerned that the day this war is over the state of israel will start targeting them this is their assumption they may be right i don't know but their concern is that if this war comes to an end and israel and the pressure on israel stops then the israelis will take a breather they will get a new government they will get their national unity back they will stop with the with the destructive uh judiciary reform and the public will come back together again and there will be a comprehensive program military diplomatic economic program by the state of israel and its american allies to go after iran that so they want to make sure that this does not happen how do you make sure this does not happen you keep the war in gaza going and you create a new sewers crisis for president joseph biden and this is a sewers crisis what they're doing to the to the ships in in yemen and of course what happened to the what happened to the israeli ship off the coast of india is part of the whole process of keeping this just keep this war going don't let it stop but then is there this might be a clear castus belly for a counter strike for for opening an attack on iran this would give perhaps least according to international law a reason a legitimate reason for a direct counter strike if this as israel and the us are directly saying this was a suicide bomb drone out of iran attacking the ship in the in global international waters is iran fearing a more imminent attack not after the war but now to be honest with you they are but they first and foremost they feel protected because of their alliance with russia and china please allow me to remind your viewers that what's happening in yemen and to all this shipping that perfectly serves the interests of the russians and the chinese the russians and the chinese want america stretched thing to the breaking point all over the world so that they can't focus on on taiwan and on ukraine and so what's happening in taiwan serves their interests so what's happening in the yemen above a mandate straight serves the russian iran iranian and and and the chinese interest the iranians right now it seems to me that they believe that president biden is going to go for election in 2024 he's not doing too well in the numbers in the polls and he does not want a confrontation in the middle east and the iranians have come to that conclusion through several ways one of them has been the repeated attacks against us forces in syria and in iraq and the you know and their american response has not been as strong as the iranians believe this is why they continue so i think the iranians are fortunately right now they were deterred before by israel especially during prime minister bennett and his octopus doctrine he said that instead of focusing on the tentacles of the octopus the octopus being iran the tentacles were hamas his ball and all the proxies instead of focusing on the tentacles we should hit the head and according to to foreign reports israel was carrying out a large number of operations inside iran during prime minister prime minister bennett's tenure and the iranians were greatly deterred but right now especially after the recent events in israel and america going to re-election they don't they're not as deterred as before but they're concerned that okay we have the upper hand right now but if this war in Gaza finishes then they could come after us in iraq yeah thanks so much for your analysis on these recent attacks on ships in the red sea in the indian ocean as well great to have your perspective here and as the debate continues on how to secure the release of additional hostages being held in Gaza and discussions ongoing perhaps this week with katar negotiators one of the recently released israeli hostages is speaking out in more detail about her time in captivity moran stella yunai shares her story here of capture and survival so When I said I was going to do it again, I said I was going to do it again. I said I was going to do it again, but no. I did it like I did before. It was a bit of a pain, it was very painful. I did it anyway, and I had to say, I'm hungry, and I'm really hungry. And that's why I had to go to the gym two years later. One of them was the one who wanted me to stay all the time. When he woke up, he wanted me to stay close to him all the time, to remember the times when he was really, really good. But he didn't want me to stay all the time. He wanted me to stay all the time, and go to sleep. And then I went to sleep, and you started shooting at night. I said, why am I going to sleep? Why am I not going to sleep? I wake up in the morning and say thank you for waking me up in the morning, and why am I not going to sleep? I say thank you. I hope that I will go to sleep, that I will be very good tomorrow. That's what makes me happy. And the only thing that makes me happy. Reporting from the field. A more expert analysis and reporting here. On I-20 News, when we come back from a break, stay with us right here as we continue to cover the Israel Hamas war and the other threats from around the Middle East and around the region. Stay with us. We'll see you soon. Hell is in a state of war. Families completely done down in their beds. We have no idea where we see it. Our soldiers are fighting on the front line, but the general perception is something that certainly needs to be fought as well. Morning for the latest live updates from Israel. I mean Israel Hamas war and other threats from across the Middle East. We begin in Gaza a difficult morning in Israel as the Israeli ground offensive in central Gaza expands. This morning the IDF says eight IDF soldiers were killed in Hamas by Hamas yesterday. Five others are in critical condition after being wounded. That means 13 soldiers were killed in Gaza over just the last 48 hours. This is by far the deadliest weekend since the war began 11 weeks ago. The IDF chief of staff visited the southern Gaza city of Hanunas for a battleground assessment yesterday. The general Herzl Hallevi said that Israel still has a lot of work to do. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke for nearly an hour yesterday with President Biden. Biden says he did not ask Netanyahu to reach a ceasefire at this time, but his readout did specifically mention a discussion on the operational goals of the war. Thousands of Israelis braved a pouring rainstorm last night for a protest against the Israeli government and the lack of progress in a new hostage deal. Speakers at the demonstration included both loved ones of current hostages and also recently freed hostages who insist the best way at this point to get the others out safely is another deal with Hamas not expanded military action. On the way to captivity, we saw things that still haunt me at night and in the middle of the day. You've all seen them on the apps, sites that are burned into my memory. Emma and Yuli, only three years old, with zero tools to deal with the sites and situations they experienced before and during captivity, will reveal to us in the distant future the scars of their hearts. And we just came in order to identify ourselves with them and to support all the families of all the kidnapped men, women and children. And we hope that with our support there will be a bigger and harder pressure on the government of Israel to do more to bring back the kidnapped. With me in studios, I, 24 News senior correspondent, Owen Alterman and Daniel Sheck, the director of diplomacy for the hostage and missing families forum and a former Israeli ambassador as well to France. Thanks so much gentlemen for being with me in studio. I want to start with you. Is there any progress in securing a new hostage deal? We understand from reports that there is dialogue, there is ongoing with Qatari interlocutors, but there's not progressing. When you speak with families, what is their sense and what this means in the days ahead? Well, first of all, Jeff, just to be clear, the families of the hostages are not part of the negotiation. They don't negotiate with Hamas or with Qatar or anybody. So, but they hear reports that there's no actual progress? Well, yeah, they hear reports, not necessarily reports that are more detailed than what you and Owen see in the media. It's one of the problems. Ongoing is a feeling of not insufficient communication between the families of hostages and the government. But that's a different story. The bottom line is that there seems to be no progress. And so, you know, that together with just the clock ticking and day after day passing just creates, we're just seeing the clock on Hostage Square. It just augments the feeling of frustration, of impatience, of fear, panic for some. And when you look at the rally yesterday, the eighth consecutive week with one specialty this time, it was raining and it was cold. And there was not one person on that square who wasn't thinking about the rain and the cold in Gaza under much worse conditions than when you come to demonstrate. What's your answer to those in Israel who, of course, earnestly desire above all else to have the hostages home but say that the price at this point may be too high. That Sinjar and the sticking points for what Hamas is demanding at this point to free more hostages in a deal is simply too high. I say what anybody who wants a negotiation to succeed would say, try again.  It's not working this time and I can understand that there are situations where a negotiation is whether demands are unreasonably high, et cetera. It could happen. You just keep going and you find ways to put pressure on your interlocutor and to make them change. The first deal more than a month ago didn't just emerge out of nothing. You know, just sat down for a moment and exchanged positions and say, okay, that's fine. It took a while. It took a long time. It took a real negotiation. It took a lot of pressure on Qatar and a lot of Qatari pressure on Hamas. This has to go on. There can be no pause in the efforts to reach an agreement. I want to bring into this conversation our correspondent, Ariel Osiron, who is along the Israel Gaza border right now for an update. I know horrible news to wake up to this morning. Of course, so many soldier deaths. Do we know how they were killed by Hamas? And perhaps what it indicates about progress on the actual battlefields throughout the Gaza Strip? Right, Jeff. Eight soldiers killed marking a weekend of 13 casualties among IDF troops, perhaps the most deadliest weekend of the forces in Gaza since the ground operation began, raising the toll to 152. And as you, I mean, regarding your question, how this happened, I mean, we're talking about exchanges of fire, different operations in central and southern Gaza. The vast majority of these casualties are either from IEDs exploding near forces or near armed vehicles or anti-tank missiles launched at these armored vehicles. Now, the vast majority of these attacks come out with, result with no injuries or casualties, and many of them are thwarted. But it's the few that do manage to be deadly and the IDF is unsuccessful in thwarting them. Look, this comes as the ground operation is as widespread as it has been since it began, the IDF saying that just over the past 24 hours, at least 200 targets have been struck from the air, from the sea, from artillery, on the ground, and a lot of these targets are continuing to be in northern Gaza, main areas that the IDF has said that they're under its control. Some of these places, almost every home that is attributed to Hamas is linked to Hamas, you find inside weapons, explosives, some near schools, near mosques. In one of the clinics in northern Gaza, they found suicide vests adjusted to the size of minors, and so this illustrates the challenge that IDF troops have to face across the Gaza Strip. But obviously, north, south, the fighting continues very severely. We have the IDF Chief of Staff, Ariel, visiting the Gaza Strip yesterday, amid all of these firefights and deadly ambushes on soldiers saying there is still a lot of work left to be done. Is there a sense on the morale, both within the fighting troops, the fighting forces in Gaza, and even in general within Israeli society, as this campaign only intensifies and expands and it's 11th week, and the casualty count grows higher? Look, the understanding was that this is not going to be an easy battle to fight, and as the campaign continues, this is only the second phase of the fighting. Now, the understanding is that morale among troops is very, very high, given that they understand the importance of this war, the necessity of it. This is not a war by choice, but this is a war that was imposed upon Israel, and it's in their time to take a stand. As for the continuation of this, there are a lot of questions being raised among the public whether Israel can even reach the goals of completely toppling Hamas militarily. The understanding is that this will not be done in this current phase. The next phase will be in a few weeks, a couple of months time perhaps, easing up in the presence of forces on the ground, and indeed continuing incursions on a daily basis, similar to the model that we're seeing in the northern part of the West Bank or pretty much across the West Bank. The goal right now is to establish a foothold to knock down a lot of the battalions, a lot of the fighting forces on the ground, but there's a very clear understanding among Israeli and military, political and military leadership that this will not end soon, that this is only one step in many steps in the goal ultimately to defeat Hamas, but one that will not be over soon. Ariel, thank you so much for that report here. Stay safe for us as you continue your reporting and analysis along the board or back here in studio. Owen, before we came to air earlier this morning, we had a little discussion. I can see the confused look on your face. I'll explain though. Not at all. We had a discussion that I believe is probably happening across millions of tables in Israel today, which is what is the goal of the war? And we discussed the interpretation of victory. What is victory? Well, maybe it's destroying Hamas's ability to rule, that they will not be in control with the government ruling over the population of Gaza, but is it the military goal above all else, that they can't fire rockets anymore, that Israelis will live safely in the Gaza envelope and elsewhere in Israel without ever worrying about a Hamas attack again, whatever, that has to be the primary. This discussion goes back and forth and it's still unclear what a primary objective is, the primary objective, and it does appear there's indications in Israel and chiefly among allies in the United States that there's patience is running out. Yeah, well listen, Jeff, I think both in Israel and in the United States, people have gone back to being sloppy in the way that this is talked about. If people were ever clean, in the opening days of the war, I was very insistent in this studio of how important it was that there be a very, very clearly defined objective and we don't just go rest back on platitudes about delivering a blow to Hamas and destroying Hamas, verbs that have no actual meaning in practice that are empty slogans and how important it was for the government to go before the cameras and to commit itself to a definable, measurable goal and objective for the war. We mostly got that at a certain stage and I think still get it to a large degree of ending Hamas's effective military control of the Gaza Strip and significantly destroying, downgrading its military capabilities. Those I think track fairly closely the original decision of the Israeli cabinet, for example, and they're often what we hear from the podium, although again, sometimes government speakers, both in Israel and frankly in the United States as well, fall black into those platitudes again in its more disciplined moments, Jeff, you're absolutely right, the Biden administration uses the words removing the threat so that October 7th can never happen again. That's something very different than ending Hamas's effective control over the Gaza Strip. And even there, the United, even there, Biden administration's folks will don't always stick to that text and are often go in different directions. And you're right that the readout of President Biden's call with Prime Minister Netanyahu Nassanite on the White House side didn't make reference to what the objective is in terms of degrading, destroying Hamas. It simply said that those objectives are part of the two leaders' discussions, which raises the question but whether there is a difference of opinion even more so than in the past between the two leaders and how they see it. As I see it, the objective is and should be, not only should be, but in my opinion is, number one, ending Hamas's effective control over the territory of the Gaza Strip, such that Hamas does not govern the Gaza Strip, that if you are paying your taxes in the Gaza Strip, you are not paying your taxes to a Hamas-run government. If there is a police officer on the street giving a ticket for a traffic violation in the Gaza Strip, that is not a police officer who is getting paid by Hamas. The education system, the medical system and so forth, not run by a government under Hamas's control. That's number one. And number two, significantly, very significantly, downgrading Hamas's military capabilities. Again, it won't necessarily be down to zero. Hamas cannot be destroyed as the cliche goes. And I agree with it. The idea of Hamas certainly cannot be destroyed. By the way, I don't think that ever was an objective in this war. And when it's cast an Israeli objective, it's often a straw man in arguments. It was never an objective of the war. But I do think those two definable, measurable objectives, in my opinion, still achievable and still achievable at a cost that Israel will be willing to bear in terms of its own society and in terms of its diplomacy. But again, the do remain to be seen and the house of getting there and certainly the timeline very much, very much in the air. Daniel, on that question, on the timeline, we have the U.S. speaking now openly about phases of the war popularly referred to as the high-intensity phase, which is now the significant ground operations which are expanding. And also then the lower-intensity phase, who knows if there's additional phases after that. This is talk of war that will last months, if not years. We have many guests and analysts who say this is a war of attrition that may last years. Patients are within Israeli society for that. What do you make of where this goes? Well, first of all, I have to say that I wonder if Owen will contradict me that although he's hearing more precise objectives, I think from the politician's point of view, it's very useful not to set... I agree with that completely, by the way. Yeah, I suspected you did, so I allow myself to include you in it. They don't... The politicians want to keep it as vague as possible because they know all too well that you can't always achieve the precise objectives that you set. There are other players here. Maybe Israel's Israeli society's patients will not run out, but the patients of the Biden administration will. And maybe a situation on the ground will dictate something. So I think there's sort of a useful veil of ambiguity that will remain. But I have to say one thing that Owen didn't say, and that is the following. The war started with a tremendous failure of the Israeli state to do its job, which is to protect its citizens. And therefore, the third objective on the list has to be to put this right, to make this right again. And one of the ways you have to say it is to bring back each and every hostage who was taken on October 7th. You can't consider it a win if you even leave one dead body in Gaza. By the way, that is clearly set as an objective. There's a podium both in Jerusalem and in Washington. So I think to that degree, the government has been extremely clear. Other threats continue to mount here across the region to Israeli security. The U.S. military says one of its warships that is part of an international coalition guarding shipping lanes in the Red Sea was targeted by four attack drones fired out of Yemen in Houthi-controlled areas. The U.S. destroyer shot down the four drones. No American service injuries are reported. Three other tankers were targeted this weekend too by explosive drones this weekend both in the Red Sea and in the Indian Ocean. Two tankers suffered direct hits and had significant structural damage. There have been at least 15 attacks now on commercial ships in the Red Sea in just the last three weeks attributed to Houthi rebels rather indiscriminately perhaps firing missiles or launching suicide drones at passing tankers. But perhaps the bigger story now is this attack in the Indian Ocean on a Liberian flag, the Israeli-owned ship, the U.S. is concretely blaming Iran for launching a one-way suicide drone. Iran's foreign minister not denying that allegation but does say Iran is not responsible for the Red Sea attacks. Yemen has officially declared its position. Its official spokesman repeats their actions daily. This is really and completely a Yemeni move out of Gaza and this American accusation is a baseless accusation against the Islamic Republic. While our side in supporting Palestine is clear, the actions taken by others should not be blamed on Iran's proxy groups. We do not have any proxy group in the area. With me now is Dr. Mayer Javan Danfar, an Iran lecturer at Reichman University in Tel Aviv. May I'm good to see you again. Talk to me a little bit perhaps about this attack separate from the Red Sea, separate from the strait there. This is in the Indian Ocean out in the middle of nowhere, far away from everyone that's a play out here in the Middle East. This was an attack on a tanker that the U.S. and Israel are specifically blaming Iran that this one-way drone comes out of Iran to attack this ship. What do you make of the allegation and perhaps the timeline here? What factors may have gone in domestically in Iran in the decision to strike now perhaps? First of all, Jeff, it's good to have you back at I-24. Now with regards to this attack near India and the attacks in Yemen, let me put this as part of the overall strategy of Iran before I talk to them specifically. Where they fit in terms of the overall strategy for the Islamic Republic of Iran right now. The strategy is to keep the current war between Israel and Hamas going. To keep it going as long as possible. Why? Because the Iranians are concerned that the day this war is over, the state of Israel will start targeting them. This is their assumption. They may be right. I don't know. But their concern is that if this war comes to an end and the pressure on Israel stops, then the Israelis will take a breather. They will get a new government. They will get their national unity back. They will stop with the destructive judiciary reform. And the public will come back together again. And there will be a comprehensive program, military, diplomatic, economic program by the state of Israel and its American allies to go after Iran. So they want to make sure that this does not happen. How do you make sure this does not happen? You keep the war in Gaza going and you create a new Suez crisis for President Joseph Biden. And this is a Suez crisis, what they're doing to their ships in Yemen. And of course, what happened to the, what happened to the Israeli ship off the coast of India is part of the whole process of keeping this, just keep this war going. Don't let it stop. But then, is there a, this might be a clear Cassus Belli for a counter strike, for opening an attack on Iran. This would give perhaps, at least according to international law, a reason, a legitimate reason for a direct counter strike. If this, as Israel and the U.S. are directly saying this was a suicide bomb drone out of Iran attacking the ship in global international waters, there's Iran fearing a more imminent attack, not after the war, but now. To be honest with you, they are, but they first and foremost, they feel protected because of their alliance with Russia and China. Please allow me to remind your viewers that what's happening in Yemen and to all this shipping that perfectly serves the interests of the Russians and the Chinese. The Russians and the Chinese want America stretched thin to the breaking point all over the world so that they can't focus on Taiwan and Ukraine. And so what's happening in Taiwan serves their interests. Sorry, what's happening in Yemen, a Bible mandate straight serves the Russian, Iranian and Chinese interests. The Iranians right now, it seems to me that they believe that President Biden is going to go for election in 2024. He's not doing too well in the numbers, in the polls. And he does not want a confrontation in the Middle East. And the Iranians have come to that conclusion through several ways. One of them has been the repeated attacks against US forces in Syria and in Iraq. And their American response has not been as strong as the Iranians believe. This is why they continue. So I think the Iranians unfortunately right now, they were deterred before by Israel, during Prime Minister Bennett and his octopus doctrine. Instead of focusing on the tentacles of the octopus, the octopus being Iran, the tentacles were Hamas, Hezbollah and all the proxies. Instead of focusing on the tentacles, we should hit the head. And according to foreign reports, Israel was carrying out a large number of operations inside Iran during Prime Minister Netanyahu's Prime Minister Bennett's tenure. And the Iranians were greatly deterred. But right now, especially after the recent events in Israel and America going to re-election, they're not as deterred as before. But they're concerned that, okay, we have the upper hand right now, but if this war in Gaza finishes, then they could come after us in Iran. Yeah, thanks so much for your analysis on these recent attacks on ships in the Red Sea, in the Indian Ocean as well. Great to have your perspective here. And as the debate continues on how to secure peace of additional hostages being held in Gaza and discussions ongoing, perhaps this week with Qatar negotiators, one of the recently released Israeli hostages is speaking out in more detail about her time in captivity, Maron Stella Yanai shares her story here of capture and survival. I was surprised. I was surprised to see people staring at me outside so they could see what I was supposed to do. I took a few steps and decided that through these steps, I had to focus on my education. Even if they forced me, they used me as an excuse for a joke. I'm a terrible person. I'm afraid to hug myself until I get food, until I have to drink water.  I said I'm a terrible person, but no. You do as you did before and it's a bit of a shame. It was very difficult. I did it on my own and I had to say I'm hungry and I'm really hungry. And that's when I had to go to school, a year later. One of them wanted me to get used to when he got used to it. He wanted me to be close to him all the time, to remember the times when he was really, really, really good. But I really got used to it. I got used to it. I got used to it and I went to school. And then I went to school and you started shooting at night. I said, why am I hungry? Why am I not hungry? I eat in the morning and say thank you for eating in the morning and why am I not hungry? I say thank you. I want to see another day when I get used to it. That's what I think. This is my only thing. For more expert analysis and reporting here on ICRIF News when we come back from a break, stay with us right here as we continue to cover the Israel Hamas war and the other threats from around the Middle East and around the region. Stay with us. We'll see you soon. Well, is in a state of war, families completely done down in their beds. We have no idea where is she as our soldiers are fighting on the front line, but the general perception is something that certainly needs to be fought as well. This morning for the latest live update of the latest live updates from Israel on the Israel Hamas war and other threats from across the Middle East. We begin in Gaza horrific news that Israel is waking up to today as the ground offensive in Gaza expands. The IDF says yesterday alone, eight soldiers killed by Hamas, five others critically wounded. 13 soldiers have been killed in Gaza over just the last 48 hours alone by far the deadliest weekend since the war began 11 weeks ago. The IDF chief of staff visited the southern Gaza city of Conyus yesterday for a battleground assessment. General Herzl Alevi said that Israel still has a lot of work to do in destroying Hamas. Prime Minister Netanyahu spoke yesterday for nearly an hour with President Biden. Biden says he did not ask Netanyahu to reach a ceasefire at this time, but his readout did specifically mention a discussion on the operational goals of the war with me now is I 21 news correspondent, Ariel Osiron joining us along the Israel Gaza border. Ariel, US President Biden mentioning a discussion on the goals of the war and the phases of the war. What does perhaps could that mean? What phase are we in now with so many soldier deaths in the last few days and where could things? Things shift in the days and weeks to come, right Jeff? So if phase one was a significant aerial bombardment of the Gaza Strip and the second phase is a significant widespread ground maneuver. The third phase would be somewhat of a phase two minus kind of that would mean also reducing the amount of forces operating inside the Gaza Strip. So creating buffer zone on the eastern and northern outskirts of the Gaza Strip to deepen its distance to increase the distance from Israeli border communities. And this third phase, which according to reports is expected to begin anytime in about the middle of next month, would include as opposed to what we're seeing now, a wide scale maneuver, multiple divisions operating at the same time. We would see more pinpoint operations, more surgical operations in order to continue and try to uproot Hamas military and civilian infrastructure. Now this comes obviously as the IDF continues to increase its foothold across the Gaza Strip, but in order to transition to this third phase, there are still some operational successes that need to be reached on the battlefield in order to move to that. So that's why we're not quite there yet. But indeed, all signs indicate that that's where we're heading to in the not immediate future, but just the one after that. Ariel, it seems that the IDF committed a lot more resources, more soldiers, troops in central Gaza. Why the focus there? Because the forces haven't operated there so far. I mean, there's the forces are spread across the Gaza Strip. The main maneuver continues to be in the southern part of the Gaza Strip around the second largest city of Chanyounis. But after significant achievements have been made up north with a wide scale control over many parts, obviously, like we talked about earlier. This isn't hermetic control because threats can continue, even in areas that the IDF says it has full control, also given the threat underground. But indeed, the IDF continues to extend its operations to new areas. That's the central part of the Gaza Strip, the Nusirat refugee camp and Dir al-Bailah, other areas like that. But also the focus remains Chanyounis. All right, Ariel, thanks so much for that report. Live along the Gaza border for us here in the studio, I'm joined by Rafael Urashami, former IDF senior intelligence officer and our senior defense correspondent, Jonathan Rega. Thank you both for being with me. Rafael, your sense on how the war is going. I mean, would you explain to our international audience, is Israel winning the war? What gains does Israel have at this point 11 weeks in that signify Israel's actually winning the war? So I might say something a bit strange. Israel is not winning the war even though Hamas has already lost it. I explain myself. Very nice, very tantalizing phrase. We want to understand what you mean by that. Well, that's what I mean, yes. Maybe so do I. So really, Hamas has lost Gaza. It has lost the control over Gaza. It has lost even the popularity among the Gaza population. And Mr. Sinois is at odds with his colleagues in Doha, in Qatar, from the Hamas who already are thinking of a political solution, a political issue to all this, maybe dismantling the military branch. So Mr. Sinois has lost the war, but he doesn't know it yet or know it enough. He still thinks with, for instance, this little weekend, 13 soldiers killed by the IDF, of the IDF, that is somehow still in control, is still fighting, is still kicking. On our part, the IDF has, of course, scored a lot of good points. Things have been advancing pretty fast, especially in Hanyounis. I think things are going faster than expected, but there's still a lot, a lot of work to do. We are in control more or less of the Gaza Strip, but we still have to fight for many weeks and months before we can actually say that we can secure the southern part of Israel from any threat from the terrorist faction of the Hamas. I think the next big step, which is of utmost importance, in my opinion, and that we've been tackling a little too late, is the Philadelphia Road, a 14-kilometer stretch along the Israeli Egyptian Gaza, sorry, Egyptian border, a very, very important strategic place with many underground tunnels. That's where the weapons arrive into Gaza, but that's also from where Mr. Sinois, accompanied by the Israeli hostages, could escape into Sinai. If there is no progress on that front, on working with Egypt, or dealing with Egypt's border with Gaza and the smuggling tunnels and the ongoing ability to smuggle in and smuggle out, doesn't Israel need to address that somehow in this, in this is an ongoing border issue with Gaza and all the civilians near the Rafah crossing there? How does Israel handle that? Well, as of this morning, the Egyptian troops have been warned to evacuate the area and that the Israelis will tackle the problem now. We have to be in full control of that particular spot, to be also in full control of what's under it. I'm saying it's a little late, but maybe we couldn't do it before because we had to secure the north, we had to take care of the civilian population and all that zone in the south that is supposed to be out of the combat zone. So it's very intricate and complicated, but it seems to me this is a very important turning point if we manage to take control of the Philadelphia road, even though we're still far, far, far from having control over Hanyounis and as was explained, we have all the center to deal with, which center possesses a lot of launching parts. So long as we don't finish our job with the center, there will be missiles shot from there into Israel. I want to say something about winning and losing victory. I don't think you can judge victory in a war in the short term. It takes a long time and I'll give a few examples. Take the second Lebanon war in 2006. The Israeli public was not feeling victory at the time because there was no decisive victory. It's not like the Six Day War. We conquered the entire Sinai and Jerusalem and we won. It didn't seem like a decisive victory. But for 15 years, 15 years, Hezbollah was absolutely quiet. It's a bit strange to talk about it now when the northern border has ignited again. But for 15 years, that border was quiet and it happened only because of the second Lebanon war. To me, that's victory. And in Gaza, it was about two and a half years after the second Lebanon war, there was a first operation, Cast Lead. Israel felt we went into Gaza, we won it. And then there were about four or five operations in the years to come. So that was not victory. I don't think you can judge this war now. We need to judge it in years to come. I think the greatest victory would be to delay the next war as much as possible. If after this one, there's no war in Gaza for 20, 30, 50 years, that would be victory. But of course, it's something that's impossible to judge now. You mentioned Hezbollah. Let's talk a little bit about the threats from the north, the attacks from the north and new reports as well. State Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is pushing back against the new Wall Street Journal report that Israel was literally minutes away from starting a major attack on Hezbollah in Lebanon in the days following, that October 7th Hamas massacre. Netanyahu says he never wavered on his need to focus first and primarily on Hamas and Gaza while trying to deter Hezbollah aggression in the north. The Journal claims that Israeli warplanes were airborne already and poised to strike Hezbollah before being told by Netanyahu to stand down after Netanyahu was convinced by US President Biden to not open a second front. I want to ask about that report, Jonathan. Two things stick out to me to date, October 11th, which in Israel was a scary day because of a warning that the Home From Command sent to every single Israeli citizen with a phone. But two things that stand out to me about this report, because many of the details were who wanted to attack Hezbollah, who didn't, when they wanted to. That was largely known and reported about. But one thing stand out, obviously, is that warplanes reportedly, already in the air, ready to go, waiting for that final call. But also that American intelligence said that the Israeli intelligence was bad, that the Israeli intelligence about what Hezbollah was up to was fault, it was not accurate, that they thought they were planning an invasion when they weren't. You can refer also, therefore, that perhaps the opposite might be true, that the American estimates that Israel doesn't know if the Israelis know what Hezbollah is up to at all. You said it was a scary day, and it was. It was Wednesday, four days after the Saturday attack when Israel was still housed in the south that day, and Israel was still battling terror squads on its territory. We were very close to a firefight between Israeli soldiers and terrorists in Israeli territory. We were just near on, right in front of Zerot, that happening on that day. And at the same time, everybody here, all of us, all of, all of, every citizen of Israel got two messages to their phones in the space of, I think, 10 minutes. One, everybody in the entire country should go to the protected shelter, and everybody should have flashlights, water, you name it, the following day, there was no water in the supermarkets anymore. Now we know, and then minutes later, the home front command saying it was a mistake, it was sent by mistake. But obviously that message was prepared. It was prepared for a reason. I can only assume. I don't know for sure. I can only assume it was prepared because Israel was planning an attack on Lebanon. And if you attack Chizballah, then Chizballah can fire rockets back to the entire state of Israel. That, I think, was the notion. What Israel knew and did know or did not know about Chizballah, there were many reports that evening, that afternoon, about UAVs falling down as far as Bechan, which is what, 50, 60 miles south of the border, many, many reports about infiltrations of Chizballah terrorists into Israel, reports which eventually were not true. But at the time, we're speaking of that Wednesday afternoon, they seem to be true. There were many reports that afternoon, meaning the Israeli leadership was already under the assumption that the attack from Chizballah has begun, that it is already taking place. We know now that it is not true. But at the time, on that day, there were many, many different reports saying Chizballah is attacking here, Chizballah is attacking there, meaning the attack has begun and Israel has to strike back. We know now that it is not true. We also know that the Minister of Defense, Yohav Galant, was one of those who was asking for an attack. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu probably did not want an attack, and perhaps the Americans provided him the ladder to get off the tree. Maybe so. The attack did not happen, and many of the intelligence reports that appeared in Israel on that specific afternoon turned out to be not true. We can make a whole salad out of this, but all of this was happening on that Wednesday afternoon. Eventually, the preemptive attack on Lebanon did not happen. That's also the day that the emergency war government was formed, the unity government in the first place. Amid these reports, the phone calls with Biden, the discussion with the Americans to attack, to preemptively deal a decisive blow to not risk that blowing up into a regional or perhaps a world war involving Lebanon, if that happened, separate from that, Netanyahu was dealing with Eisenhower and Gantz and trying to get together a unity government at the same time it was a day of fear, a day of chaos, a day of confusion. And what do you make, Rafael, of the questions about Israeli intelligence that this report raises? And we did have false messages being sent. We had false red alert sirens going off, incorrect information about... People still today, two months later, have water bottles at home, which they bought on that day. Supermarkets for three or four days were empty. That was the case. How good do you think Israeli intelligence is into Hezbollah was doubted by this report? And as we talk about the ongoing discussions of a preemptive strike, will Israel strike a decisive preemptive blow? Would Hezbollah also consider the same thing for their own, for exactly the same calculations? So obviously the intelligence wasn't good. And we are making the same mistake in the north that we did with the south. When you do not have good intelligence and when you do not have an effect of deterrence, the only solution is a preemptive strike. You don't know what it's going to be, so you don't take any chances. Every day that passes by, every day that the Americans are stopping us from attacking Hezbollah in the south of Lebanon is getting worse and worse for Israel's security. By now, the Iranians are supplying Hezbollah with advanced GPS systems for their missiles, with suicide drones, with more and more ammunition and equipment. They are reinforcing the pro-Iranian Shi'ite militias in Syria with Iraqi ones. The Hezbollah is actually preparing a huge conflict, but it hasn't decided for when. Tehran doesn't want to spoil this ammunition of the Hezbollah right now. It's keeping it for later, apparently. But yet again, if you don't have the intelligence and you don't have the deterrence, then you cannot just wait. If you wait, the Hezbollah today has 150,000 missiles. Many years ago, it had less than 80,000. In next year, it'll have 200,000. Does Israel need the United States to do this? They need their support. They might need their weaponry. Absolutely. And unfortunately for us, the United States is not reading the map well. Maybe our intelligence is not very good, but there's not good either. They do not read the map well. They do not want an escalation. The escalation is already here. I mean, how come you have such a huge American presence in the Red Sea, an international coalition, and that the Houthis, with all your respect, it's a small mercenary force that, paid by Tehran, are threatening the whole world economy and maritime trade? You have a huge American military presence in the Mediterranean. And the Hezbollah feels that they can do absolutely what they want. They're not afraid, because the American says, please, no, no, no. This is the right signal to set your enemy. Oh, I'm afraid I don't want to tackle the problem, because I don't want to escalate. It's already escalated. And the main mistake of the Americans in not reading the map is that what they are fighting in the end and what they are afraid of is the power of the Axis from Moscow to Beijing, the Russian-China Axis going through Tehran. And the only way they can avoid this is by, the Middle East is a secret. The Middle East, you have to cut this Axis into, and to cut it into, it's there in the Middle East, where Iran is, and they're not doing the job. You mentioned the attack in the Red Sea. Let's talk about that. The U.S. military says one of its warships, another one of the U.S. Navy warships, was targeted this weekend by four attack drones fired out of Yemen in Houthi-controlled areas. The U.S. destroyer shot down those four drones. No American servicemen injuries are reported, no damage to the U.S. Navy ship. But three other tankers also this weekend targeted by explosive drone attacks, both in the Red Sea and in the Indian Ocean. Two tankers suffered direct hits. They had significant structural damage. There have been at least 15 attacks on commercial ships in the Red Sea in just the last three weeks attributed to Houthi rebels who are rather indiscriminately firing missiles or suicide drones at these passing tankers. As Raphael mentioned, the U.S. is now part of an international coalition pledged to secure and safe passageway of ships in the Red Sea. But perhaps the bigger story now is this attack in the Indian Ocean, far away, on the Liberian flagged Israeli-owned ship. The U.S. is squarely blaming Iran and says Iran launched a one-way suicide drone. Iran's foreign minister not denying the Indian Ocean strike, but does say Iran not responsible for the Red Sea attacks. Yemen has officially declared its position. Its official spokesman repeats their actions daily. This is really and completely a Yemeni move in support of Gaza. And this American accusation is a baseless accusation against the Islamic Republic. While our side in supporting Palestine is clear, the actions taken by others should not be blamed on Iran's proxy groups. We do not have any proxy group in the area. Back here in studio, Jonathan, we're talking about the Red Sea attacks here. You're Raphael mentioning the U.S. is here. They have multiple aircraft carriers and nuclear submarines. They have a massive U.S. Navy presence in the Mediterranean. And the questions are growing about what good are they doing here? What are they doing when the Houthis are still attacking almost daily tankers or causing damage to tankers? And now perhaps Iran also directly attacking ships Israeli owned even further away. They're sailing, which is nice. They're also taking down drones, which is also something that should be respected. But what else are this straight in the southern part of the Red Sea is a global problem. It's not only an Israeli problem. Not only is Israel affected by it, but other companies as well, BP, British Petroleum, for example, a giant company is not sailing through there anymore. The Suez Canal connecting the Red Sea and the Mediterranean is, there's much less cargo going there, meaning much less money coming into Egypt. Any ship sailing from the Indian Ocean to the Red Sea to the Mediterranean is now under threat. I don't know what the American ships are doing, to be honest. They are there to deter. They're not deterring, obviously, because these things continue to happen. So what are they here for? I understand that their elections in the US in less than a year, I understand we're in election year. I understand that the US wants to focus on internal policies, but this is a problem. And not only for Israel, not only Israel is affected by this, but the entire world. So what are these ships doing here? What is this coalition doing here? I don't know. And the Houthis with all the respect. I don't think that these are mercenaries that can eventually stand if a serious American-led coalition comes in. But at the moment, it is not happening. We have in the last few seconds more Red Alert sirens, warning of incoming rockets. This time in the far north, this continues the near daily attacks from the north of either artillery fire, rockets, or increasingly suicide drones that have led to at least 10 Israeli deaths, including soldiers and civilians in recent weeks. You're offering all these rocket attacks from the north happening even right now again. We talked about this Wall Street Journal report about all the discussions back in October 11th after the Hamas attack. Still unanswered questions today in late December about what to do, about the 80,000 families who cannot go back home, and there's no answer for them about when it will be safe to do so. There's no answer until the situation changes on the Israeli-Lebanese border, which hasn't so far, even though we do notice some kind of drawing back up towards the north of the Hezbollah troops, like almost half of the Red One force has moved back to up north. But there's still another half left on sitting on the border. So there seems to be a beginning of an effect of the Israeli attacks. I mean, we are frustrated that there is not a larger offensive on the Hezbollah. But the Israeli strikes are much more spectacular than one might think. We don't realize that. They're striking quite hard on the, you know, in Lebanon, 100,000 Lebanese also have evacuated the area because the fighting is quite tough. So there is a kind of beginning of something happening there. We're giving a chance to the diplomatic channels as well, the French and the Americans trying to put pressure on the Lebanese government, which is inexistent actually. And in the end, I don't think we will have a choice in the end. We will have to strike militarily much harder on the Hezbollah, unless they comply with what we're asking. We're not asking for much right now. We're only asking for a few kilometers to go back a few kilometers, leave a kind of a demilitarized zone between them and us. We're not trying to dismantle them like we do with the Hamas in the south. Not much to ask for. Apparently, they seem unboldened enough to refuse this situation, yet again pointing here, I'm afraid, an accusing finger at the United States that his presence has not deterred the Hezbollah in any way. We're going to keep an eye on the situation in the north again, more rocket attacks this morning from the north, from Lebanon into Israel. Also, the situation continues in Gaza as the IDF campaign expands. We may hear answers in the days ahead on progress in a new hostage negotiation deal that may result in a multi-day ceasefire, again for the release of hostages. The progress on these talks reportedly has stalled, but dialogue is still ongoing. More and more hostages who spend time in Hamas captivity are speaking out about their humiliation and degradation there. 29-year-olds appear Cohen was held by Hamas for 55 days, but then was finally freed. Here are some of her story. And back here in the studio with an update already on the violence in the north, Jonathan. Yes, reports unconfirmed at the moment saying that the sirens we mentioned in the northern border in the town of Shlomi were triggered because of Israeli actions, not incoming fire from Lebanon. These are the reports now, again, unconfirmed at this time. But again, the reports indicate, again, that at least Israel is continuing this attacking of Hezbollah positions north of the border. We'll stay on top of it. Jonathan, thanks so much for that update. We're all feel great to have you in studio for your analysis as well. We're going out for a break. But more news ahead. Stay with us right here at 9.20 for news. We have more live coverage out in the field as the Israel Hamas war continues today. And the other threats in the region that Israel is facing will have more expert reporting and analysis. Stay with us. We'll see you soon. Is in a state of war, families completely gunned down in their beds. We have no idea where is she as our soldiers are fighting on the front line. But the general perception is something that certainly needs to be fought as well. Tonight, 24 news this morning for the latest live updates from Israel on the Israel Hamas war and other threats from across the Middle East. We begin in Gaza horrific news that Israel is waking up to today as the ground offensive in Gaza expands. The IDF says yesterday alone, eight soldiers killed by Hamas, five others critically wounded. 13 soldiers have been killed in Gaza over just the last 48 hours alone. By far the deadliest weekend since the war began 11 weeks ago. The IDF chief of staff visited the southern Gaza city of communists yesterday for a battleground assessment. General Herzlalevi said that Israel still has a lot of work to do in destroying Hamas. Prime Minister Netanyahu spoke yesterday for nearly an hour with President Biden. Biden says he did not ask Netanyahu to reach a ceasefire at this time. But his readout did specifically mention a discussion on the operational goals of the war. With me now is I, 24 news correspondent, Ariel Oceran joining us along the Israel-Gaza border. Ariel, US President Biden mentioning a discussion on the goals of the war and the phases of the war. What does perhaps could that mean? What phase are we in now with so many soldier deaths in the last few days? And where could things, how can things shift in the days and weeks to come? Right, Jeff. So if phase one was a significant aerial bombardment of the Gaza Strip and the second phase is a significant widespread ground maneuver. The third phase would be somewhat of a phase two minus kind of that would mean also reducing the amount of forces operating inside the Gaza Strip. Also creating buffer zone on the eastern and northern outskirts of the Gaza Strip to deepen its distance, to increase the distance from Israeli border communities. And this third phase, which according to reports is expected to begin anytime in about the middle of next month, would include as opposed to what we're seeing now, a wide scale maneuver, multiple divisions operating at the same time, we would see more pinpoint operations, more surgical operations in order to continue and try to uproot Hamas military and civilian infrastructure. Now this comes obviously as the IDF continues to increase its foothold across the Gaza Strip but in order to transition to this third phase, there are still some operational successes that need to be reached on the battlefield in order to move to that. So that's why we're not quite there yet, but indeed all signs indicate that that's where we're heading to in the not immediate future, but just the one after that. And it seems that the IDF committing a lot more resources, more soldiers, troops in central Gaza. Why the focus there? Because the forces haven't operated there so far. I mean, the forces are spread across the Gaza Strip. The main maneuver continues to be in the southern part of the Gaza Strip around the second largest city of Chanyunis, but after significant achievements have been made up north with a wide scale control over many parts, obviously like we talked about earlier. This isn't hermetic control because threats can continue even in areas that the IDF says it has full control also given the threat underground, but indeed the IDF continues to extend its operations to new areas. That's the central part of the Gaza Strip, the Nusirat refugee camp and Dir al-Baalach other areas like that, but also the focus remains Chanyunis. Alright Darryl, thanks so much for that report. Live along the Gaza border for us here in the studio, I'm joined by Rafael Urushalmi, former IDF Senior Intelligence Officer and our Senior Defense Correspondent, Jonathan Rega. Thank you both for being with me. Rafael, your sense on how the war is going. I mean, would you explain to our international audience, is Israel winning the war? What gains does Israel have at this point 11 weeks in that signify Israel's actually winning the war? So, I might say something a bit strange. Israel is not winning the war even though Hamas has already lost it. I explain myself. Yeah. Hamas. Very nice, very tantalizing phrase. We want to understand what you mean by that. Yes, maybe so do I. So really Hamas has lost Gaza. It has lost the control over Gaza. It has lost even the popularity among the Gaza population. Mr. Sinoir is at odds with his colleagues in Doha in Qatar from the Hamas who already are thinking of a political solution, a political issue to all this, maybe dismantling the military branch. So Mr. Sinoir has lost the war but he doesn't know it yet or know it enough. He still thinks with, for instance, this little weekend, 13 soldiers killed by the IDF, of the IDF, th