24 News, I'm Siobhan Raveev and these are the latest developments coming to you live from Tel Aviv. Today is Day 96 of Israel's war with Hamas as the fighting continues. The IDF announced that 24-year-old Sergeant First Class and Reserves El Kanan Nulander from Efrat was killed fighting yesterday in the Central Gaza Strip. He was a combat medic in the 99th Division and is the 186th soldier to be killed in the ground offensive against Hamas. A senior Hezbollah commander Ali Hossein Burji responsible for numerous explosive drone attacks on northern Israel, including a recent strike on an IDF base, was killed in an Israeli air strike in southern Lebanon yesterday. Despite international efforts to prevent escalation, crossfire continues across Israel's northern border with Lebanon. U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken visited Israel once again during his shuttle diplomacy trip to the Middle East this week and addressed the humanitarian crisis in Gaza discussing the phase transition of Israel's military campaign and the efforts to prevent further conflict. Blinken met with Israeli hostage families and also expressed concern about the International Court of Justice submission against Israel rejecting the charge of genocide. Blinken highlighted discussions with regional leaders and their commitment to preventing conflict escalation. We know that facing an enemy that embeds itself among civilians, who hides in and fires from schools, from hospitals, makes this incredibly challenging. But the daily toll on civilians in Gaza, particularly on children, is far too high as Israel's campaign moves to a lower intensity phase in northern Gaza and as the IDF scales down its forces there. We agreed today on a plan for the UN to carry out an assessment mission. It will determine what needs to be done to allow displaced Palestinians to return safely to homes in the north. Now this is not going to happen overnight, there are serious security, infrastructure and humanitarian challenges, but the mission will start a process that evaluates these obstacles and how they can be overcome. And joining us now from southern Israel is our I-24 news correspondent, Pierre Achlochendler. Pierre, what's the situation currently on the ground? Well, we know that the IDF is enlarging its ground offensive under the tutelage of the 98th Division of Combined Combat Forces in Ghaniunas in the central and southern sector of the city of Ghaniunas. We've heard some sporadic artillery fire toward the El Burej refugee camp. There's four refugee camps in the central sector of the Gaza Strip. Two of them are currently being invested by the Israeli army El Burej and Al-Murazid. There's another one El Nusserat, which is also one of the targets of the IDF mission in this area. And the situation behind us, which is south of Gaza City, is calm at this point. Now the U.S. is calling on Israel to allow the return of residents of Gaza to the north. What is the response? And is this feasible at this stage? You know, the soldier that was killed and whose death was announced overnight, belonged to the 98th Division of Combined Combat Teams and the task of that division and the task of that paramedic was to bisect to cut off the northern part of the Gaza Strip, which is under low-intensity warfare with the IDF cutting down the number of forces there from the central and southern sector where the ground offensive is in full force. Now this division is preventing the population that was displaced because of the fighting in the northern sector of the Gaza Strip and moved to the south of the Gaza Strip from returning north. And one of the problems of this displaced population is that there are still terror nests in the northern sector. Jebalia was targeted earlier this tonight. And even the U.S. Secretary of State says it's going to take time because there are unexploded ordnance in the northern sector of the Gaza Strip. There are still launching rockets on the communities around the Gaza Strip. And as a result, it's not going to happen immediately. And the Israeli Army says it's not going to happen now. Pierre Kloshandler, thank you very much. And joining us now is former head of the Israeli Security Agency, the Shin Bet Yaakov Peri. Thank you for joining us. Good morning. Good morning. Yaakov, we're hearing that this operation in Gaza is moving and shifting towards a third phase, but what does that mean exactly and does it make sense at this point to be shifting to a third phase, perhaps in the north, but certainly in the south there is so much more to do? Yeah, there is a lot of work to finalize. Mainly, in southern Egypt, we have a lot of tunnels, tunnels which we haven't found yet. And after we've found them, it's a big addition to eliminate them. We have almost two million refugees staying in the southern part of the Strip. And part of them will probably want to go back to the north. To all that issues, you have to add, of course, the issue of the hostages, which now we cannot say that we have any kind of solution. So it will take quite a time in order to finish the battles, bring back the hostages, and decide if to allow the refugees to go back to the north, and who will be the master of what's going on in Gaza in the future. Now there's talk of the return of the Gazans to northern Gaza, and the U.S. is certainly interested for this to happen. Will Israel allow this, and how can it even be achieved during war? Well, we have a couple of problems. First of all, up there in the northern part of the Strip, there is not many houses left. So people will not have places where to live. Of course, we didn't finalize some war issues, the northern part, and we are still the middle of the war in the southern part. So it will take time, and Israel will not allow Europe just to come back to the north. Now there are all kinds of – can hear all kinds of comments about the future. Some of the Israeli ministers are supporting kind of immigration, which is not a very good solution, but we have to check it with other countries. And of course, this is immigration, and without immigration, we will be left with almost two million citizens. Somebody will have to take care of them. Now with Israel withdrawing several brigades out of Gaza, and perhaps Gazans going back to the north, won't Hamas likely rebuild their network there? No doubt that Hamas will try. It depends how many – how successful it will be in our war, and how many Hamas operators will really eliminate. There is, of course, the danger that some of the followers will try to rebuild the organization. Now we know that U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken has been in Israel and in the Middle East. What is the main message that he's delivering to Israel? First of all, for the time being, the U.S. is back covering us, and we have support and help, ammunition and, of course, sympathy and morale. But the U.S. is pushing us to a kind of ceasefire in order to finalize the problem of the hostages and to bring back refugees to the north. In that case, we have a lot of problems, because almost 70 percent of the buildings in the north are not existing anymore. So we have a big problem of housing, and the government of Israel, the Israeli cabinet, didn't decide yet who will take care of those who will remain together to take a lot of time. For the time being, there is no other – there is no other solution, and the army will have to stay there. Now let's talk about the northern border. Israel's northern border. We know that there have been targeted killings of Hezbollah operatives, and for the first time in quite a while, we're hearing Israel admit to the targeted killing. Usually we hear alleged reports, according to foreign media, and this time Israel is announcing that they did target and kill Hezbollah operatives. Why the change? Well, we are in another stage, in a higher stage in the north nowadays. Israel is not interested in breaking the whole war, and he didn't get – he is getting the orders from the Iranian and, of course, the Lebanese government, but he is targeting a Israeli northern settlements and army bases, and it's quite difficult to locate, destroy those little airplanes.  And for the time being, we killed – if I'm not mistaken – two, and we will kill more in order to chill a little bit the atmosphere in the north. Is this – do you believe that this is a good strategy, these targeted killings, Israel's responses? Is this a good strategy to up the military pressure, or should they target a more diplomatic approach? Well, we have to do both of the – we have to open the diplomatic way, and we have also to kill those who are targeting us. Only the combination of diplomatic initiatives and killing responsible commanders will give the – will bring a solution. I don't know how long it will take. Yakov Peli, thank you very much for joining us today. My pleasure. The U.S. military's central command says that U.S. and U.K. forces shot down 21 drones and missiles fired by Yemen-based Houthis into the southern Red Sea toward international shipping lanes, this following 26 Houthi attacks on commercial shipping lanes in the Red Sea since November 19th. And joining us now in studio is our I-24 News Middle East correspondent, Ariel Osaran. We're hearing an attack on the Houthis. Where is this going? How is this going to be resolved, do you think? Yeah, this 26th attack by the Houthis really illustrates or amplifies the lack of action by the U.S.-led coalition against the Houthis that do not appear deterred even despite a statement by 14 countries, including the U.S., that the Houthis will bear responsibility for these attacks. We're talking about an attack last night off the coast of Yemen, 18 drones, two anti-ship cruise missiles, and an anti-ship ballistic missile. We're all launched. This is a complex attack according to Sencombe's statement, and they were all intercepted by American and British warships that are positioned in the area. The reason I mentioned this statement by 14 countries is because in Sencombe's statement regarding this attack, they also include a reference to that statement at the end of it, which it's hard not to read it as passive aggression towards American political leaders. This is the U.S. Central Command saying that on January 3rd, 14 countries, including the U.S., issued a joint statement stating the Houthis will bear responsibility for the consequences. Should they continue to threaten lives of the global economy with a free flow of commerce in the region's critical waterways, so far we have not seen any proactive steps taken by this U.S. coalition to stop these attacks besides diplomatic steps. Later today, the U.N. Security Council is expected to hold a vote that will condemn these Houthi attacks, but given that this follows just other statements that are not only condemning the attacks, but warning of their continuation, it is not clear whether this additional statement will have any implications as to the security reality in the waters of the Red Sea, so far they have not done that. And we know that this is certainly impacting maritime trade, a Chinese shipping giant Costco stopped visiting Israeli ports, and there are other implications in the region, so this is quite a serious issue and is escalating as we speak. Indeed, for, I mean, this is an attempt, and so far partially successful, by the Houthis, obviously the proxy of Iran, to try and impose a maritime blockade on Israel, and it's effective, it's working, and it's not just on Israel and its ports, but it's on a geographical area that is a key waterway for the global economy. About 12 to 15 percent of all global commerce runs through there, through the Red Sea, and then into the Suez Canal, basically connecting the shipping routes of Asia and Europe. And so this is a significant threat, not just for Israel, and not just for the region. This is really a global threat. We are seeing countries all around the world joining forces to try and stop this. So far these attempts are not going beyond anything militarily beyond thwarting attacks. I will just note that the other day, newly appointed foreign minister in Israel, Issa Al-Khat, saying that Israel does not need America at all, that America is not helping Israel at all, that is not the case. America is helping militarily with thwarting attacks, whether this was aimed towards Israel or not, probably not, but the U.S. has thwarted these drone strikes and missiles aimed at Israel. And so putting this all together, military presence important, but so far it's not done enough to stop these attacks. Ariel Osiram, thank you very much. And now we shift to some disturbing new footage from the 7th of October. The atrocities that unfolded on that Saturday in southern Israel caught on tape by Hamas terrorists themselves using body camp footage taken by their elite Nukba forces. These images may be difficult to watch. More in this report from Channel 12 News. Early morning, October 7th, Hamas' Nukba force still in their lairs turn on the cameras that will record their attack and the massacre to follow. Along with tea and trail mix, the terrorist on the left lays out this bag. That looks like drugs to me. Captain gone. Speed drugs. See? This is the symbol of the Muslim Brotherhood. Allah Wahid, one God. Islamist tax. Now the terrorists face the Israeli obstacle. Four layers of fences, barbed wire, the old fence, earthmounds, and the $3 billion smart fence. After the second blast, they make their way through the old fence and proceed to the smart fence. The terrorists have now invaded Israel. A stopwatch counting from the first explosion until the moment terrorist squad number one crosses into Israel shows seven and a half minutes. And that time, they meet no Israeli resistance. It's very well timed based on extensive exercises. There's a surprise factor here and their numbers. Their numbers is what tip the scales in the crucial first minutes. On a different route in the Gaza envelope, Nukh Basquad number three ambushes civilian cars. The radio is on. An ecstatic song is calling, bomb, burn. Leave no Zionist alive. It seems you're even more upset when you see the terrorists. Because I see the vacuum. I say this with humility. We could have had hundreds waiting for them at the border. Most often, they knew exactly where to go. And when on site, they knew which places. Here the terrorists come into view of Kibbut Sufa. They also encounter fire from the adjacent military base, which stalls them. Having crossed the orchard, they are within reach of the army stronghold. What we're hearing is only AK-47 fire. You can tell that there's no IDF fire at this time. The fight at the main gate of the base lasted several hours, thanks to the resistance of Israel's Nakhal forces. This terrorist seems in charge of the attack on the base. He gives the orders, although no one calls him by rank. You see a commander sending his men forward. You won't see that in the IDF. The supposed commander catches up. The terrorists enter the barracks. There's almost no one there. Most soldiers in the base are fighting in the mess hall. Many of them are wounded, some seriously. Here, a terrorist films himself in the mirror, fussing around documentation and the apparent orders from commanders inside Gaza for propaganda footage keep stirring quarrels. This is the Hamas' military radio. Simple walkie-talkies with few miles range. They've used them for years. According to reports, especially in the foreign media, 8200 IDF signal intelligence unit stopped listening to those radios, which are probably the ones Hamas used in their exercise. Despite their injuries and lack of ammunition, those IDF soldiers still alive managed to hold back the terrorists. After hours of Hamas controlling the base, Shayet at Navy commandos arrive and clear the base from terrorists. Meanwhile, in nearby Kibbutzoufa, terrorist squad number four manages to enter. They struggle to open the gate, but they eventually succeed. In the attempt to hold the terrorists, Kibbutz security team member Oz Khubara is killed.  Then, finally, they are eliminated. That's all for this edition of I-24 News. We have rolling coverage, providing you with the latest from Israel. We'll be back at the top of the hour. For more news and updates, be sure to follow us on our website i-24news.tv and across our social media platforms. I'm Seba Raveave. Thank you for watching. Luther King's famous 1968 mountaintop speech was based on his trip to the Promised Land. Well now, 55 years later, his prophetic words are coming true. Stories of African American women took a journey of a lifetime to the Holy Land. We'll introduce you to the amazing female spiritual and religious leaders who are infusing new energy into the next generation of African Americans. 24 News, I'm Seba Raveave and these are the latest developments coming to you live from Tel Aviv. Today is day 96 of Israel's war with Hamas as the fighting continues. The IDF announced that 24-year-old Sergeant First Class and Reserves El Kanan Nulander from Efrat was killed fighting yesterday in the central Gaza Strip. He was a combat medic in the 99th Division and is the 186th soldier to be killed in the ground offensive against Hamas. A senior Hezbollah commander Ali Hossein Burji responsible for numerous explosive drone attacks on northern Israel including a recent strike on an IDF base was killed in an Israeli air strike in southern Lebanon yesterday. Despite international efforts to prevent escalation, crossfire continues across Israel's northern border with Lebanon. US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken visited Israel once again during his shuttle diplomacy trip to the Middle East this week and addressed the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, discussing the phase transition of Israel's military campaign and the efforts to prevent further conflict. Blinken met with Israeli hostage families and also expressed concern about the International Court of Justice submission against Israel rejecting the charge of genocide. Blinken highlighted discussions with regional leaders and their commitment to preventing conflict escalation. We know that facing an enemy that embeds itself among civilians who hides in and fires from schools, from hospitals makes this incredibly challenging. But the daily toll on civilians in Gaza, particularly on children, is far too high. As Israel's campaign moves to a lower intensity phase in northern Gaza and as the IDF scales down its forces there, we agreed to down a plan for the UN to carry out an assessment mission. It will determine what needs to be done to allow displaced Palestinians to return safely to homes in the north. Now, this is not going to happen overnight. There are serious security, infrastructure and humanitarian challenges, but the mission will start a process that evaluates these obstacles and how they can be overcome. And joining us now from southern Israel is our I-24 news correspondent, Pierre Kloeschendler. Pierre, what's the situation currently on the ground? Well we know that the IDF is enlarging its ground offensive under the tutelage of the 98th Division of Combined Combat Forces in Hanyunas in the central and southern sector of the city of Hanyunas. We've heard some sporadic artillery fire toward the El Buraj refugee camp. There's four refugee camps in the central sector of the Gaza Strip. Two of them are currently being invested by the Israeli Army El Buraj and Al-Mughazi. There's another one, El Nusserat, which is also one of the targets of the IDF mission in this area. And the situation behind us, which is south of Gaza City, is calm at this point. Now the U.S. is calling on Israel to allow the return of residents of Gaza to the north. What is the response and is this feasible at this stage? You know the soldier that was killed and whose death was announced overnight belonged to the 98th Division of Combined Combat Teams and the task of that division and the task of that paramedic was to bisect, to cut off the northern part of the Gaza Strip, which is under low intensity warfare with the IDF cutting down the number of forces there from the central and southern sector where the ground offensive is in full force. Now this division is preventing the population that was displaced because of the fighting in the northern sector of the Gaza Strip and moved to the south of the Gaza Strip from returning north. And one of the problems of this displaced population is that there are still terror nests in the northern sector. Jebalia was targeted earlier this tonight and even the U.S. Secretary of State says it's going to take time because there are unexploded ordnance in the northern sector of the Gaza Strip. There are still launching rockets on the communities around the Gaza Strip and as a result it's not going to happen immediately. And the Israeli Army says it's not going to happen now. Pierre Klosschandler, thank you very much. And joining us now is former head of the Israeli Security Agency, the Shin Bet Yaakov Perry. Thank you for joining us. Good morning. Good morning. Yaakov, we're hearing that this operation in Gaza is moving and shifting towards a third phase. But what does that mean exactly and does it make sense at this point to be shifting to a third phase perhaps in the north but certainly in the south there is so much more to do? Yeah, there is a lot of work to finalize. Mainly in southern Egypt we have a lot of tunnels, tunnels which we haven't found yet. And after we've found them it's a big addition to eliminate them. We have almost two million refugees staying in the southern part of the Strip. And part of them will probably want to go back to the north. To all that issues you have to add, of course, the issue of the hostages, which now we cannot say that we have any kind of solution. So it will take quite a time in order to finish the battles, bring back the hostages and decide if to allow the refugees to go back to the north and who will be the master of what's going to go in Gaza in the future. Now there's talk of the return of the Gazans to northern Gaza and the U.S. is certainly interested for this to happen. Will Israel allow this and how can it even be achieved during war? Well, we have a couple of problems. First of all, up there in the northern part of the Strip there is not any houses left. So people will not have places where to live. Of course, it didn't finalize some war issues, the northern part, and we are still in the middle of the war in the southern part. So it will take time and Israel will not allow the refugees to come back to the north. Now there are all kinds of – can hear all kinds of comments about the future. Some of the Israeli ministers are supporting kind of immigration, which is not a very good solution, but we have to check it with other countries. And of course, with immigration, without immigration, we will be left with almost 2 million citizens. Somebody will have to take care of them. Now with Israel withdrawing several brigades out of Gaza and perhaps Gazans going back to the north, won't Hamas likely rebuild their network there? No doubt that Hamas will try. I don't know how many – how successful it will be in our war and how many Hamas operators will really eliminate. There is of course the danger that some of the followers will try to rebuild the organization. Now we know that U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken has been in Israel and in the Middle East. What is the main message that he's delivering to Israel? First of all, for the time being, the U.S. is back covering us, and we have support and help, ammunition and of course sympathy and morale. But the U.S. is pushing us to a kind of ceasefire in order to finalize the program of the hostages and to bring back refugees to the north. In that case, we have a lot of problems because almost 70 percent of the buildings in the north are not existing anymore. So we have a big problem of housing and the government of Israel, the Israeli cabinet, didn't decide yet who will take care of those who will remain Gaza to take a lot of time. For the time being, there is no other solution and the army will have to stay there. Now let's talk about the northern border. Israel's northern border. We know that there have been targeted killings of Hezbollah operatives. And for the first time in quite a while, we're hearing Israel admit to the targeted killing. Usually, we hear alleged reports according to foreign media. This time Israel is announcing that they did target and kill Hezbollah operatives. Why the change? Well, we are in another stage, in a higher stage in the north nowadays. Israel is not interested in breaking the whole war. And he didn't get the, he's getting the orders from the Iranian and, of course, the Lebanese government. But he's targeting a Israeli modern settlements and army bases.   And for the time being, we killed, if I'm not mistaken, two.  Is this, do you believe that this is a good strategy, these targeted killings, Israel's responses? Is this a good strategy to up the military pressure or should they target a more diplomatic approach? Well, we have to do both of the, we have to open the diplomatic way and we have also to kill those who are targeting us. And the combination of diplomatic initiates and killing the responsible commanders will give the, will bring a solution. I don't know how we're going to take it. Yakov Peli, thank you very much for joining us today. My pleasure. The US military central command says that US and UK forces shot down 21 drones and missiles fired by Yemen-based Houthis into the southern Red Sea toward international shipping lanes. This following 26 Houthi attacks on commercial shipping lanes in the Red Sea since November 19th. And joining us now in studio is our I-24 News Middle East correspondent, Ariel Osiram. We're hearing an attack on the Houthis. Where is this going? How is this going to be resolved, do you think? Yeah, this 26th attack by the Houthis really illustrates or amplifies the lack of action by the US-led coalition against the Houthis that do not appear deterred even despite a statement by 14 countries, including the US, that the Houthis will bear responsibility for these attacks. We're talking about an attack last night off the coast of Yemen, 18 drones, two anti-ship cruise missiles, and an anti-ship ballistic missile, where all launched this complex attack according to Sankam's statement. And they were all intercepted by American and British warships that are positioned in the area. Now, the reason I mention this statement by 14 countries is because in Sankam's statement regarding this attack, they also include a reference to that statement at the end of it, which it's hard not to read it as passive aggression towards American political leaders. This is the US Central Command saying that on January 3rd, 14 countries, including the US, issued a joint statement stating the Houthis will bear the responsibility for the consequences. Should they continue to threaten lives of the global economy with a free flow of commerce in the region's critical waterways, so far we have not seen any proactive steps taken by this US coalition to stop these attacks besides diplomatic steps. Later today, the UN Security Council is expected to hold a vote that will condemn these Houthi attacks, but given that this follows just other statements that are not only condemning the attacks but warning of their continuation, it is not clear whether this additional statement will have any implications as to the security reality in the waters of the Red Sea, so far they have not done that. And we know that this is certainly impacting maritime trade, a Chinese shipping giant Costco stopped visiting Israeli ports and there are other implications in the region, so this is quite a serious issue and is escalating as we speak. Indeed, for I mean this is an attempt and so far partially successful by the Houthis, obviously the proxy of Iran, to try and impose a maritime blockade on Israel and it's effective, it's working and it's not just on Israel and its ports, but it's on a geographical area that is a key waterway for the global economy. About 12 to 15 percent of all global commerce runs through there, through the Red Sea and then into the Suez Canal basically connecting the shipping routes of Asia and Europe and so this is a significant threat not just for Israel and not just for the region, this is really a global threat. We are seeing countries all around the world joining forces to try and stop this, so far these attempts are not going beyond anything militarily beyond thwarting attacks. I will just note that the other day newly appointed foreign minister in Israel Issa Al-Khat saying that Israel does not need America at all, that America is not helping Israel at all, that is not the case. America is helping militarily with thwarting attacks, whether this was aimed towards Israel or not, probably not, but the U.S. has thwarted these drone strikes and missiles aimed at Israel and so putting this all together, military presence important, but so far it's not done enough to stop these attacks. Ariel Osaran, thank you very much. And now we shift to some disturbing new footage from the 7th of October. The atrocities that unfolded on that Saturday in southern Israel caught on tape by Hamas terrorists themselves using body camp footage taken by their elite Nukba forces. These images may be difficult to watch, more in this report from Channel 12 News. Early morning, October 7th, Hamas's Nukba force still in their lairs turn on the cameras that will record their attack and the massacre to follow. Along with tea and trail mix, the terrorist on the left lays out this bag. That looks like drugs to me. Captain Ghan. Speed drugs. See? This is the symbol of the Muslim Brotherhood. Allah Wahid, one God. Islamist texts. Now the terrorists face the Israeli obstacle. Four layers of fences, barbed wire, the old fence, earth mounds and the $3 billion smart fence. After the second blast, they make their way through the old fence and proceed to the smart fence. The terrorists have now invaded Israel. A stopwatch counting from the first explosion until the moment terrorist squad number one crosses into Israel shows seven and a half minutes. In that time, they meet no Israeli resistance. It's very well timed based on extensive exercises. There is a surprise factor here and their numbers. Their numbers is what tip the scales in the crucial first minutes. On a different route in the Gaza envelope, Nour Basquad number three ambushes civilian cars. The radio is on. An ecstatic song is calling bomb, burn. Leave no Zionist alive. It seems you're even more upset when you see the terrorists. Because I see the vacuum. I say this with humility. We could have had hundreds waiting for them at the border. Most often, they knew exactly where to go. And when on site, they knew which places. Here, the terrorists come into view of Kibbutz Sufa. They also encounter fire from the adjacent military base, which stalls them. Having crossed the orchard, they are within reach of the Army stronghold. What we're hearing is only AK-47 fire. You can tell that there's no IDF fire at this time. The outer fence of the base is breached. Fifteen minutes. That's how long it took this squad from the moment they crossed the fence till they charged the Sufa military base. The fight at the main gate of the base lasted several hours, thanks to the resistance of Israel's Nakhal forces. This terrorist seems in charge of the attack on the base. He gives the orders, although no one calls him by rank. You see a commander sending his men forward. You won't see that in the IDF. The supposed commander catches up. The terrorists enter the barracks. There's almost no one there. Most soldiers in the base are fighting in the mess hall. Many of them are wounded, some seriously. Here, a terrorist films himself in the mirror. Fussing around documentation and the apparent orders from commanders inside Gaza for propaganda footage keep stirring quarrels. This is the Hamas' military radio. Simple walkie-talkies with few miles range. They've used them for years. According to reports, especially in the foreign media, 8,200 IDF signal intelligence units stopped listening to those radios, which are probably the ones Hamas used in their exercise. Despite their injuries and lack of ammunition, those IDF soldiers still alive managed to hold back the terrorists. Help! What are you doing? Help! Help! After hours of Hamas controlling the base, Shayetat Navy commandos arrive and clear the base from terrorists. Meanwhile, in nearby Kibbutzoufa, terrorist squad number four manages to enter. They struggle to open the gate, but they eventually succeed. We're going to break it! In the attempt to hold the terrorists, Kibbutz security team member Oz Khubara is killed.  Then, finally, they are eliminated. I should have laid in the laundry room. That's all for this edition of I-24 News. We have rolling coverage, providing you with the latest from Israel. We'll be back at the top of the hour. For more news and updates, be sure to follow us on our website, i-24news.tv and across our social media platforms. I'm Seba Raveve. Thank you for watching. State of war families completely gunned down in their beds. We have no idea where we see as our soldiers are fighting on the front line, but the general perception is something that certainly needs to be fought as well. I'm Seba Raveve and these are the latest developments coming to you live from Tel Aviv. Today is day 96 of Israel's war with Hamas as the fighting continues. The IDF announced the 24-year-old sergeant first class in reserves El Kanan Nulander from Efrat was killed fighting yesterday in the central Gaza Strip. He was a combat medic in the 99th Division and is the 186th soldier to be killed in the ground offensive against Hamas. A senior Hezbollah commander Ali Hossein Burji responsible for numerous explosive drone attacks on northern Israel, including a recent strike on an IDF base, was killed in an Israeli airstrike in southern Lebanon yesterday. Despite international efforts to prevent escalation, crossfire continues across Israel's northern border with Lebanon. U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken visited Israel once again during his shuttle diplomacy trip to the Middle East this week and addressed the humanitarian crisis in Gaza discussing the phase transition of Israel's military campaign and the efforts to prevent further conflict. Blinken met with Israeli hostage families and also expressed concern about the International Court of Justice submission against Israel rejecting the charge of genocide. Blinken highlighted discussions with regional leaders and their commitment to preventing conflict escalation. Take a listen. We know that facing an enemy that embeds itself among civilians who hides in and fires from schools, from hospitals, makes this incredibly challenging. But the daily toll on civilians in Gaza, particularly on children, is far too high as Israel's campaign moves to a lower intensity phase in northern Gaza. And as the IDF scales down its forces there, we agreed to down a plan for the UN to carry out an assessment mission. It will determine what needs to be done to allow displaced Palestinians to return safely to homes in the north. Now, this is not going to happen overnight. There are serious security, infrastructure, and humanitarian challenges. But the mission will start a process that evaluates these obstacles and how they can be overcome. And joining us now in studio is head of research at the IDSF Habitronistim, Ory Sachar, and senior journalist at Idiot Akronot, Daley Bendro Yamini. Thank you both for coming in. Bendro, I'd like to speak to you about the US Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken's visit to Israel as part of a broader Middle East regional trip. What was his message coming here to Israel? His message, actually, is what he wants to achieve at the end is a kind of a ceasefire. Why? Because, yes, the majority in the American public is still supporting Israel. But he hears the people who are totally against. And we saw what happened in one of the conferences of President Biden when people were shouting from the audience. So he does understand that maybe, just maybe, they have a problem. I'm not sure that the way that they behave is the right way, because the point is that you do not have to put the pressure on Israel. You have to put the pressure on the leaders of the Hamas. They are the people who refused again and again to any kind of disarming the Gaza Strip and other proposals that actually were initiated from the international community, speaking about the EU, speaking about the Quartet. And unfortunately, and I have to criticize my own government, they do not use it. They do not use it. They can initiate something like that. You know what? We know the answer. If Israel will suggest ceasefire for disarming the Gaza Strip, we know that they are going to say yes. But speaking about the international arena, Israel can only benefit from such an initiative. But Israel is not doing anything. And the outcome is that we have this kind of international pressure, as we saw yesterday from Anthony Blinken, unfortunately. So we're seeing international pressure and certainly American pressure. Israel should initiate, because it should be that headlines in the international media will be not that Hamas is asking for a ceasefire. It should be the opposite. Israel is asking for a ceasefire, yes, for disarming the Gaza Strip. Let them say no. Don't take them no upon yourself. And that, unfortunately, what Israel is doing. And you believe a ceasefire, calling out for a ceasefire on Israel's behalf is the right move at this point, when not all of the war's objectives were not yet fulfilled. What I'm talking about, we have a problem in the international public opinion. What I'm suggesting will help Israel in that respect. I'm not saying that they are going to accept it. We both know that they are not going to accept it. So it's a win-win situation. If they will say yes, great.  And the international power, whoever will come in order to dismantle the Gaza Strip. They're saying yes to what, exactly? If they will say yes to what? To releasing the hostages? To disarming? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Both, of course, Israel will put the preconditions, hostages disarming the Gaza Strip, removing all the Hamas leadership, not even killing them. I don't care about them. Why not to initiate something? Why always, but always, to be pushed by the United States? Why always to be pushed by the international community? We have to initiate something. And we do not do it, unfortunately. But has Israel not said time and again that these are the objectives of the war? Demilitarizing, releasing the hostages? Of course we have to dismantle the Hamas. I mean, I'm supporting all the goals of this operation. But we are losing power in the international community, in the public opinion. We are losing power. And eventually, it happened already three times before that we were doing very well on the ground. And we had to stop it in Lebanon, second in the two big operations in Gaza Strip. We had to stop. We were forced, actually, to stop. Do we want it again? And that's what we might face in the next upcoming weeks. Bendro and Orr, please stay with us. We'll be back to you in a moment. But in the meantime, joining us from southern Israel is our I-24 news correspondent, Pierre Klochendler. Pierre, what's the situation on the ground? The IDF just announced that the operation, the ground offensive, in the central sector, which started more or less on December 23. And in Hanyunas, southward, which started in December 2, are going in full force and even deepening, especially in Hanyunas. The IDF announces that there were 150 strikes on presumed terror targets in the refugee camp on El Mourazi, which is in the central sector of the Gaza Strip and which has been invaded by the Israeli army, as well as El Borej, another refugee camp. You may have heard now the outgoing of artillery fire, which is in this direction, in the direction of Jucho Redik, which is at the entrance of the four refugee camps of the central sector of the Gaza Strip. We know that scores of terrorists have been killed during those strikes, which are supporting the ground forces operating in the area. And the US has been calling on Israel to allow the return of residents of Gaza to the northern area of the Gaza Strip. What's the response at this point? Well, the response is that the Israeli government has accepted that the UN Special Envoy for the Gaza Strip will be visiting the northern sector of the Gaza Strip at some point. There's no definite date. But there are absolutely no definite date for the return of displaced Palestinians. There are about a million who moved from the battleground in the northern sector of the Gaza Strip when the ground offensive started on October 27. Now the war in the northern Gaza Strip is a low-intensity warfare. That means cleaning the area of unexploded ordinance minds that have been stirring the northern sector of the Gaza Strip, as well as cleansing the towns that are facing the communities in Israel, eradicating those towns because of anti-tank guided missile, because of sniper fire before the war, and as a result, the Israeli army's creating some sort of perimeter, security perimeter, in which the population will not be able to leave because it's a field of ruins. So at this moment, there is absolutely no schedule for the return of the million people that were displaced from the north to the south. Pierre Kluchender, thank you very much. And back in studio with us are Bandro Yamini and Ory Sachal. We are hearing our correspondent, Pierre, down south by the border with Gaza. And we're hearing him speak of a low-intensity warfare in the southern part. What does that mean exactly? I think Israel should practice what it preaches. I mean, you cannot, on the one hand, define an objective of the war, which is defeating Hamas and annihilating all of its political-military infrastructure and bringing back all the hostages, and only then move to stage three, which is purifying so-called clearing the area from terrorists for a year or two, three to come, like we did after the defensive shield operation in Judensim area. And right now, we are hearing double voices. And that starts to concern, to be honest. We see how the visit of a Secretary of State Blinken representing precisely the attitude of October 6. We cannot go back to the days before the October 7 attack, where we chant the same rhythm and the same hymn of two-state solution, of humanitarian corridors, of bringing people back to their homes of independent Palestinian state. We need to think and echo a whole different attitude, because we see the mounting international pressure come within Israeli initiative to the day after in Gaza, start enacting it in the ground. If we have sufficient control over the northern Gaza Strip, we should continue and start planning the military, the martial law that will be there for a couple of months before the final stage as we envision the Gaza Strip. Residents should not go back to northern Gaza. IDF troops are still fighting there, and the mission is far from over, far from over. And I'm struggling to understand why the Israeli, both administration and public officials, do not come with clear vision for the Gaza Strip to conquer the entire Gaza Strip, to clear the entire Gaza Strip from terrorists. And even if the United States pressures us to go for the two state solution, at the end of the day, that represent precisely what Blinken said, we are aware of the problems, we're aware of the issues, but we don't have a better solution. So if they don't have better solutions, let's bring our own solutions. And there is so much more to develop and speak about this, but I do want to discuss with you a new report that came out by Ashok al-Ausat, saying basically that the October 7th massacre was planned out a decade ago, before the 2014 operation, and was kept top secret. Only five top Hamas operatives knew the exact details, and I quote what they say here. Only five people, the leader of the Hamas movement in the Gaza Strip, Yehiss Sunwar, the leader of the Al-Qasam Brigades, Mohamed Adif, and one of his most important aides and the most wanted by Israel, Mohamed Al-Sunwar, which is Yehiss' brother, and the leader of the movement, Rahoui Mushtaha, who is close to Sunwar, along with Aiman Nofal, one of DEF's close associates, and the former official in charge of Al-Qasam Intelligence. So we see that they were able to keep this top secret for a very long time. We also saw, by the way, that the Hamas leadership in Gaza made a pretty much independent decision, not even informing most of the Hamas leadership abroad, not to mention the Iranians, et cetera. Look, these kind of reports keep coming, and my suggestion is that many more will come, but at the end of the day, yes. Israel was aware that Hamas has such plans simply because it televised them all around social media and all around the Hamas state media, inviting reporters to witness maneuvers and drills that it conducted to abduct Israelis to take over townships, to take over military bases. Hezbollah does the same thing last summer. He did exactly the same thing, inviting media to document Hezbollah troops taking over the Galilee. And I don't think that anyone was surprised by the very intention. I think the surprise by the defense apparatus was the sheer scale of it and the sheer scope and- The execution. Exactly, the execution, and quite literally the execution. And unfortunately, we saw the scale of brutality and the level of response by Israel, which was insufficient to say the least. That will have to be investigated later, but we do know that, to be honest, there's a difference between, let's say, knowledge and internalization. We did not internalize Hamas's intentions. We kind of derogated our enemies by not believing that they will actually be capable of doing all these things. They would, they're only touting their media outlets in order to gain some domestic support. And this kind of derogation and not estimating your enemy as much as we should has been characteristic, had been characteristic of the October 6th paradigm. This is not something we can go back to. And I think at the end of the day, we should apply the same logic elsewhere. What are Hezbollah's true intentions? What are the Arabs, the Palestinians, the Densimers' true intentions? What are Iran's true intentions striving to a nuclear bomb? All these things should be very carefully considered. And we hear in the same report, Palestinian sources say that the flood, which is what they call the massacre that they executed, like you say, this flood began with only 70 fighters, Hamas fighters, who carried out the surprise attack. They were trained. They were selected from hundreds of operatives. They were trained all the way until this very moment when they carried out these specific attacks. Absolutely. And they keep training. And I think they kind of sort of neutralize the awareness on the part of Israeli systems by keeping on drilling and keeping on maneuvering. And not doing the real-time attack until it actually happened. So we kind of assume that there were still drills and still maneuvers, et cetera. But I think that really what the reporter just mentioned said that only 70 people were trained for that. And we saw how 3,000 Gazans invaded, of which we assume hundreds, if not thousands, of Nukhba fighters. But hundreds, if not thousands of other Gazans, who were the Zara'in, as they say, the masses, who invaded after the Hamas attack, the aftermath, kept murdering and stealing and committing all sorts of atrocious crimes. At the end of the day, I think Hamas maybe was even surprised by its own success. It definitely envisioned how its own elite units will react. But encouraging the masses to go out was something it planned, like it did in the riots on the fence. But had they expected it would do such a phenomenal success, as much as it's sad to say it, I think they expected even much more. They expected to penetrate deep into Jenin's Samaria, reach the heart of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. And in that sense, the bravery of the police, of the border police, of the IDF, showed that it was definitely Israel that met them on the other side of the fence, although it would have to be investigated at the later stage. Oh, thankfully, that didn't happen. Because there are two conceptions, two attitudes. One is saying, when they declare something like, we want to exterminate all the Jews, we want to exterminate all the Christians, they say it, by the way, in the TV channel. They say it. And for example, I mean, we don't have to go 10 years back, which is very interesting. But Yakhir Sinwa just declared exactly what they are going to do in 2018. Now, what was the conception? If they say it, they do not mean it. And which is a big mistake? Because when they say it, they mean it. They are going to carry it out. And that's what so many people in Israel, and I'm speaking about the army, and I'm speaking about the government, they did not want to believe that they mean every word that they said. I do remember sitting with an Iranian professor some years ago. And he told me, look, whatever the leaders of Iran are saying, they mean it. We forgot that. They absolutely mean it. And they were underestimated. Ben-Roy Amini and Ori Sakhal, thank you very much for joining us. Thank you so much. The US military central command says that US and UK forces shot down 21 drones and missiles fired by Yemen-based Houthis into the southern Red Sea toward international shipping lanes. This following 26 Houthi attacks on commercial shipping lanes in the Red Sea since November 19. Earlier today, I spoke to I-24 News Middle East correspondent Ariel Oceran. Take a listen. This 26th attack by the Houthis really illustrates amplifies the lack of action by the US-led coalition against the Houthis that do not appear deterred even despite a statement by 14 countries, including the US, that the Houthis will bear responsibility for these attacks. We're talking about an attack last night off the coast of Yemen, 18 drones, two anti-ship cruise missiles, and an anti-ship ballistic missile. We're all launched as a complex attack according to St. Com's statement. And they were all intercepted by American and British warships that are positioned in the area. Now, the reason I mention this statement by 14 countries is because in St. Com's announcement or statement regarding this attack, they also include a reference to that statement at the end of it, which it's hard not to read it as passive aggression towards American political leaders. This is the US Central Command saying that on January 3, 14 countries, including the US, issued a joint statement stating that Houthis will bear the responsibility for the consequences. Should they continue to threaten lives of the global economy or the free flow of commerce in the region's critical water race, so far we have not seen any proactive steps taken by this UN coalition to stop these attacks besides diplomatic steps. Later today, the UN Security Council is expected to hold a vote that will condemn these Houthi attacks. But given that this follows just other statements that are not only condemning the attacks but warning of their continuation, it is not clear whether this additional statement will have any implications as to the security reality in the waters of the Red Sea. So far, they have not done that. Most communities from the Gaza envelope left their homes three months ago. Now the community of Enhabesor is facing a new challenge as some people return home and others refuse to. Our correspondents, Uri Shapira and Karmit Molcho, have more in this report. A small group gathered last week to discuss the future plans for the village. These include a new basketball court and a communal garden. Nothing exceptional, perhaps, except the village in question, is Enhabesor, adjacent to the Gaza Strip. We're going to be here now today. You hear the bombing behind us. It's probably the most safe place in Israel right now. Okay? There's hundreds of thousands of soldiers a few miles away. And it's going to be safe. Because if this place is not going to be safe in a few months or a year from now, no place in Israel is going to be safe. This is the task of the country of our generation. It's our shift to make it better, safer and stronger than what it was. Most of Enhabesor's residents were evacuated to a lot in other locations after the murderous Hamas assault of October 7th. Village resident Professor Iftah Geffner supports this quick return and the recovery of this community. That's not everyone agrees with him. Each person can do whatever he wants. But as a community, I think that the government position should be to wait for a second. We will find an answer to all of your needs. Now we have the opportunity to solve the issue and you'll come back once the place is safe. For many in this community, Enhabesor is stuck between a rock and a hard place. On one hand, it is close to the Gaza border and there are constant threats in the area. But as opposed to other places like near Oz and Kibbutz Bayeri, Enhabesor managed to block the Hamas infiltration on October 7th, mostly thanks to the security squad and some say luck. And as some communities moved to permanent residency in cities like Tel Aviv, others like Enhabesor are still staying in hotels. We came here because we didn't have a choice. We moved to Elad. It is three hours away from here. My husband was called up to the IDF. If he was a few hours away, he could have driven to Elad just to see us. The distance in the time without him is very difficult for me and for the kids. We came back not to return here, but in order to see my husband and to move to our next home, which won't be in Elad, but a place where we can meet my husband. This is where I'm heading towards. Itzan Akhmani is one of the residents who opposed an immediate return to the area. She's worried about the effect on her children. They don't feel safe here. Every little noise makes them jump. They asked me to lock the doors and to cover the windows, just like on October 7th, when there was an infiltration threat to the village. When we drive in the car, my young child is hiding because he's afraid that a terrorist will see him and abduct him. It's sad. Moving in between different houses, Itzan is trying to maintain a routine for her family. The kids haven't been in school for a long time now, so when we come here to visit, we practice math in Hebrew, so they won't forget. But other families are reaching different solutions, such as this alternative school, which was opened by volunteers a few days ago. After more than two months, as my family started falling apart, I decided that no matter what, I'm coming back home to Ain Habsor. In the first few weeks, I helped my husband, who was a farmer. His high workers left, and the situation was very bad. After a month, I understood that I need to take care of my kids. It's been three months already, and my kids didn't process what happened here on October 7th. They are lacking a social and educational framework. The gaps are enormous. These kids aren't in school since June. Professor Geffner's son, Alon, says he's happy to return. You're not afraid from the war, from bombing, from... I'm a little bit afraid, but I'm trying to be positive. Ain Habsor was established in 1982 by a group of Jewish settlers who were evacuated from the Yammid district in the Sinai Peninsula as part of the peace agreement between Israel and Egypt. The Klakeh was a young child when Yammid was evacuated. Now she faces another separation from her home. However, she says that the situation is completely different to that of 42 years ago. The feeling is very different. When we were evacuated from Sinai, at least from what I remember and from what I was told, the feeling was that the country was taking care of us and that it would help us rebuild our community. Today, no one tells you what will happen tomorrow. It's even difficult to join other communities. Caught between the basic need for security and safety, and the traumatic memories of October 7th, and on the other hand, the need for stability and a strong yearning for home, the people of Ain Habsor, like many other Israelis, are still waiting to decide on their next step, as the war in Gaza continues and the solution is yet not on the horizon. That's all for this edition of I-24 News. We have rolling coverage providing you with the latest from Israel. We'll be back at the top of the hour for more news and updates. Be sure to follow us on our website, i-24news.tv, and across our social media platforms. I'm Sivana Rave. Thank you for watching. Did you know that Martin Luther King's famous 1968 mountaintop speech was based on his trip to the Promised Land? Well, now, 55 years later, his prophetic words are coming true. Hundreds of African-American women took a journey of a lifetime to the Holy Land. We'll introduce you to the amazing female spiritual religious leaders who are infusing new energy into the next generation of African-Americans. Rave, and these are the latest developments coming to you live from Tel Aviv. Today is Day 96 of Israel's war with Hamas as the fighting continues. The IDF announced the 24-year-old Sergeant First Class in Reserves, El Kanan Nulander, from Efrat was killed fighting yesterday in the Central Gaza Strip. He was a combat medic in the 99th Division and is the 186th soldier to be killed in the ground offensive against Hamas. A senior Hezbollah commander Ali Hossein Burji responsible for numerous explosive drone attacks on northern Israel, including a recent strike on an IDF base, was killed in an Israeli airstrike in southern Lebanon yesterday. Despite international efforts to prevent escalation, crossfire continues across Israel's northern border with Lebanon. US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken visited Israel once again during his shuttle diplomacy trip to the Middle East this week and addressed the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, discussing the phased transition of Israel's military campaign and the efforts to prevent further conflict. Blinken met with Israeli hostage families and also expressed concern about the International Court of Justice submission against Israel rejecting the charge of genocide. Blinken highlighted discussions with regional leaders and their commitment to preventing conflict escalation. Take a listen. We know that facing an enemy that embeds itself among civilians who hides in and fires from schools, from hospitals makes this incredibly challenging. But the daily toll on civilians in Gaza, particularly on children, is far too high as Israel's campaign moves to a lower intensity phase in northern Gaza. And as the IDF scales down its forces there, we agreed to down a plan for the UN to carry out an assessment mission. It will determine what needs to be done to allow displaced Palestinians to return safely to homes in the north. Now, this is not gonna happen overnight. There are serious security, infrastructure, and humanitarian challenges. But the mission will start a process that evaluates these obstacles and how they can be overcome. And joining us now in studio is head of research at the IDSF Habitronistim, Ori Sakhar, and senior journalist Yadiyot Akhronot, Daily. Ben Dror, Yamini, thank you both for coming in. Ben Dror, I'd like to speak to you about the US Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken's visit to Israel as part of a broader Middle East regional trip. What was his message coming here to Israel? His message actually is what he wants to achieve at the end is a kind of a ceasefire. Why? Because, yes, the majority in the American public is still supporting Israel, but he hears the people who are totally against, and we saw what happened in one of the conferences of President Biden when people were shouting from the audience. So he does understand that maybe, just maybe they have a problem. I'm not sure that the way that they behave is the right way because the point is that you do not have to put the pressure on Israel. You have to put the pressure on the leaders of the Hamas. They are the people who refuse again and again to any kind of disarming the Gaza Strip and other proposals that actually were initiated from the international community, speaking about the EU, speaking about the Quartet. And unfortunately, and I have to criticize my own government, they do not use it. They do not use it. They can initiate something like that. You know what? I know the answer. If Israel will suggest ceasefire for disarming the Gaza Strip, we know that they're going to say yes. But speaking about the international arena, Israel can only benefit from such an initiative, but Israel is not doing anything. And the outcome is that we have this kind of international pressure, as we saw yesterday from Anthony Blinken, unfortunately. So we're seeing international pressure and certainly American pressure. Yes, Israel should initiate because it should be that headlines in the international media will be not that Hamas is asking for ceasefire. It should be the opposite. Israel is asking for a ceasefire, yes, for disarming the Gaza Strip. Let them say no. Don't take them no upon yourself. And that, unfortunately, what Israel is doing. And you believe a ceasefire, calling out for a ceasefire on Israel's behalf is the right move at this point when not all of the war's objectives were not yet fulfilled. What I'm talking about, we have a problem in the international public opinion. What I'm suggesting will help Israel in that respect. I'm not saying that they are going to accept it. We both know that they are not going to accept it. So it's a win-win situation. If they will say yes, great.  They're saying yes to what, exactly? If they will say yes to what? To releasing the hostages? To disarming, yeah, yeah, yeah. Both, of course, Israel will put the preconditions, hostages disarming the Gaza Strip removing all the Hamas leadership, not even killing them, I don't care about them. Why not to initiate something? Why always, but always to be pushed by the United States? Why always to be pushed by the international community? We have to initiate something and we do not do it, unfortunately. But has Israel not said time and again that these are the objectives of the war? Demilitarizing, releasing hostages? Of course, we have to dismantle the Hamas. I mean, I'm supporting all the goals of this operation. But, but, but, we are losing power in the international community, in the public opinion. We are losing power and eventually, it happened already three times before that we were doing very well on the ground and we had to stop it in Lebanon, second in the two big operations in Gaza Strip. We had to stop, we were forced actually to stop. Do we want it again? And that's what we might face in the next upcoming weeks. Bendro and Orr, please stay with us. We'll be back to you in a moment. But in the meantime, joining us from Southern Israel is our I-24 news correspondent, Pierre Kloeschendler. Pierre, what's the situation on the ground? The IDF just announced that the operation, the ground offensive in the central sector, which started more or less on December 23 and in Hanyunas southward, which started in December 2nd, are going in full force and even deepening, especially in Hanyunas. The IDF announces that there were 150 strikes on presumed terror targets in the refugee camp on El Mourazi, which is in the central sector of the Gaza Strip and which has been invaded by the Israeli army, as well as El Borej, another refugee camp you may have heard now, the outgoing of artillery fire, which is in this direction, in the direction of Jucho Redic, which is at the entrance of the four refugee camps of the central sector of the Gaza Strip. We know that scores of terrorists have been killed during those strikes, which are supporting the ground forces operating in the area. And the U.S. has been calling on Israel to allow the return of residents of Gaza to the northern area of the Gaza Strip. What's the response at this point? Well, the response is that the Israeli government has accepted that the UN Special Envoy for the Gaza Strip will be visiting the northern sector of the Gaza Strip at some point. There's no definite date, but there are absolutely no definite date for the return of displaced Palestinians. There are about a million who moved from the battleground in the northern sector of the Gaza Strip when the ground offensive started on October 27. Now the war in the northern Gaza Strip is a low-intensity warfare. That means cleaning the area of unexploded ordinance minds that have been stirring the northern sector of the Gaza Strip, as well as cleansing the towns that are facing the communities in Israel, eradicating those towns because of anti-tank guided missile, because of sniper fire before the war. And as a result, the Israeli army is creating some sort of perimeter, security perimeter in which the population will not be able to leave because it's a field of ruins. So at this moment, there is absolutely no schedule for the return of the million people that were displaced from the north to the south. Pyrracle Chandler, thank you very much. And back in studio with us are Bendro Yamini and Ori Sakhar. Oh, we are hearing our correspondent, Pyrr, down south by the border with Gaza, and we're hearing him speak of a low-intensity warfare in the southern part. What does that mean, Izak? I think Israel should practice what it preaches. I mean, you cannot, on the one hand, define an objective of the war, which is defeating Hamas and annihilating all of its political-military infrastructure and bringing back all the hostages, and only then move to stage three, which is purifying so-called clearing the area from terrorists for a year, two, three to come, like we did after the defensive shield operation in Judensim area. And right now, we are hearing double voices, and that starts to concern, to be honest. We see how the visit of a Secretary of State Blinken representing precisely the attitude of October 6th. We cannot go back to the days before the October 7th attack, where we chant the same rhythm and the same hymn of two-state solution, of humanitarian corridors, of bringing people back to their homes of independent Palestinian state. We need to think and echo a whole different attitude because we see the mounting international pressure come within Israeli initiative to the day after in Gaza, start enacting it in the ground. If we have sufficient control over the northern Gaza Strip, we should continue and start planning the military, the martial law that will be there for a couple of months before the final stage as we envision the Gaza Strip. Residents should not go back to northern Gaza. IDF troops are still fighting there, and the mission is far from over, far from over. And I'm having, I'm struggling to understand why the Israeli, both administration and public officials do not come with clear vision for the Gaza Strip to conquer the entire Gaza Strip, to clear the entire Gaza Strip from terrorists. And even if the United States pressures us to go for the two-state solution, at the end of the day, that represent precisely what Blinken said, we are aware of the problems, we're aware of the issues, but we don't have a better solution. So if they don't have better solutions, let's bring our own solutions. And there is so much more to develop and speak about this, but I do want to discuss with you a new report that came out by Ashok al-Ausat, saying basically that the October 7th massacre was planned out a decade ago, before the 2014 operation, and was kept top secret. Only five top Hamas operatives knew the exact details, and I quote what they say here, only five people, the leader of the Hamas movement in the Gaza Strip, Yahis Sunwar, the leader of the Al-Qasam Brigades, Mohamed Adef, and one of his most important aides and the most wanted by Israel, Mohamed Al-Sunwar, which is Yahis' brother, and the leader of the movement, Rahui Mushtaha, who is close to Sinoir, along with Ayman Nofal, one of DEF's close associates, and the former official in charge of Al-Qasam Intelligence. So we see that they were able to keep this top secret for a very long time. We also saw, by the way, that the Hamas leadership in Gaza made a pretty much independent decision, not even informing most of the Hamas leadership abroad, not to mention the Iranians, et cetera. Look, these kind of reports keep coming, and my suggestion is that many more will come, but at the end of the day, yes. Israel was aware that Hamas has such plans, simply because it televised them all around social media and all around the Hamas state media, inviting reporters to witness maneuvers and drills that it conducted to abduct Israelis, to take over townships, to take over military bases. Hezbollah does the same thing last summer. He did exactly the same thing, inviting media to document Hezbollah troops taking over the Galilee. And I don't think that anyone was surprised by the very intention. I think the surprise by the defense apparatus was the sheer scale of it and the sheer scope. And- The execution. Exactly, the execution, and quite literally the execution. And unfortunately, we saw the scale of brutality and the level of response by Israel, which was insufficient to say the least, that will have to be investigated later. But we do know that, to be honest, there's a difference between, let's say, knowledge and internalization. We need not internalize Hamas's intentions. We kind of derogated our enemies by not believing that they will actually be capable of doing all these things. They would, they're only touting their media outlets in order to gain some domestic support. And this kind of derogation and not estimating your enemy as much as we should has been characteristic, had been characteristic of the October 6th paradigm. This is not something we can go back to. And I think at the end of the day, we should apply the same logic elsewhere. What are Hezbollah's true intentions? What are the Arabs, the Palestinians, the Densimers' true intentions? What are Iran's true intentions striving to a nuclear bomb? All these things should be very carefully considered. And we hear in the same report, Palestinian sources say that the flood, which is what they call the massacre that they executed, like you say, this flood began with only 70 fighters, Hamas fighters, who carried out the surprise attack. They were trained. They were selected from hundreds of operatives. They were trained all the way until this very moment when they carried out these specific attacks. Absolutely. And they keep training. And I think they kind of sort of neutralize the awareness on the part of Israeli systems by keeping on drilling and keeping on maneuvering. And not doing the real-time attack until it actually happened. So we kind of assume that there were still drills and still maneuvers, et cetera. But I think that really what the reporter just mentioned said, that only 70 people were trained for that. And we saw how 3,000 Gazans invaded, of which we assume hundreds, if not thousands, of Nukhba fighters. But hundreds, if not thousands, of other Gazans, who were the Zara'in, as they say, the masses, who invaded after the Hamas attack or the aftermath, kept murdering and stealing and committing all sorts of atrocious crimes. At the end of the day, I think Hamas maybe was even surprised by its own success. It definitely envisioned how its own elite units will react. But encouraging the masses to go out was something it planned like it did in the riots on the fence. But had they expected it would do such a phenomenal success as far as much as it's sad to say it, I think they expected even much more. They expected to penetrate deep into Jenin's Samaria, reached the heart of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. And in that sense, the bravery of the police, of the border police, of the IDF, showed that it was definitely Israel that met them on the other side of the fence, although it would have to be investigated at the later stage. Well, thankfully, that didn't happen. Because there are two conceptions, two attitudes. One is saying, when they declare something like, we want to exterminate all the Jews. We want to exterminate all the Christians. They say it, by the way, in the TV channel. They say it. And for example, I mean, we don't have to go 10 years back, which is very interesting. But Yakhir Sinwa just declared exactly what they are going to do in 2018. Now, what was the conception? If they say it, they do not mean it. And which is a big mistake? Because when they say it, they mean it. They are going to carry it out. And that's what so many people in Israel, and I'm speaking about the army, and I'm speaking about the government, they did not want to believe that they mean every word that they said. I do remember sitting with an Iranian professor some years ago. And he told me, look, whatever the leaders of Iran are saying, they mean it. We forgot that. They absolutely mean it. And they were underestimated. Ben Roryamini and Ori Sakhal, thank you very much for joining us. The US military central command says that US and UK forces shot down 21 drones and missiles fired by Yemen-based Houthis into the southern Red Sea toward international shipping lanes, this following 26 Houthi attacks on commercial shipping lanes in the Red Sea since November 19. Earlier today, I spoke to I-24 News Middle East correspondent Ariel Oceran. Take a listen. This 26th attack by the Houthis really illustrates amplifies the lack of action by the US-led coalition against the Houthis that do not appear deterred even despite a statement by 14 countries, including the US, that the Houthis will bear responsibility for these attacks. We're talking about an attack last night off the coast of Yemen, 18 drones, two cruise missiles, and an anti-ship ballistic missile. We're all launched as a complex attack according to SENDCOMS statement. And they were all intercepted by American and British warships that are positioned in the area. Now, the reason I mention this statement by 14 countries is because in SENDCOMS announcement or statement regarding this attack, they also include a reference to that statement at the end of it, which it's hard not to read it as passive aggression towards American political leaders. This is the US Central Command saying that on January 3rd, 14 countries, including the US, issued a joint statement stating that Houthis will bear the responsibility for the consequences should they continue to threaten lives of the global economy or the free flow of commerce in the region's critical waterways. So far, we have not seen any proactive steps taken by this UN coalition to stop these attacks besides diplomatic steps. Later today, the UN Security Council is expected to hold a vote that will condemn these Houthi attacks. But given that this follows just other statements that are not only condemning the attacks, but warning of their continuation, it is not clear whether this additional statement will have any implications as to the security reality in the waters of the Red Sea. So far, they have not done that. Most communities from the Gaza envelope left their homes three months ago. Now the community of Enhabesor is facing a new challenge as some people return home and others refuse to. Our correspondents, Uri Shapira and Karmit Molcho, have more in this report. A small group gathered last week to discuss the future plans for the village. These include a new basketball court and a communal garden. Nothing exceptional, perhaps, except the village in question, is Enhabesor, adjacent to the Gaza Strip. We're going to be here now today. You hear the bombing behind us. It's probably the most safe place in Israel right now. There's hundreds of thousands of soldiers few miles away. And it's going to be safe. Because if this place is not going to be safe in a few months or a year from now, no place in Israel is going to be safe. This is the test of the country of our generation. It's our shift to make it better, safer, and stronger than what it was. Most of Enhabesor's residents were evacuated to Elat in other locations after the murderous Hamas assault of October 7. Village resident Professor Iftah Geffner supports this quick return and the recovery of this community. That's not everyone agrees with him. Each person can do whatever he wants. But as a community, I think that the government position should be to wait for a second. We will find an answer to all of your needs. Now we have the opportunity to solve the issue, and you'll come back once the place is safe. For many in this community, Enhabesor is stuck between a rock and a hard place. On one hand, it is close to the Gaza border, and there are constant threats in the area. But as opposed to other places like near Oz and Kibbutz Bairi, Enhabesor managed to block the Hamas infiltration on October 7, mostly thanks to the security squad and Samseh Ilak. And as some communities moved to permanent residency in cities like Tel Aviv, others like Enhabesor are still staying in hotels. We came here because we didn't have a choice. We moved to Elad. It is three hours away from here. My husband was called up to the IDF. If he was a few hours away, he could have driven to Elad just to see us. The distance in the time without him is very difficult, for me and for the kids. We came back not to return here, but in order to see my husband and to move to our next home, which won't be in Elad, but a place where we can meet my husband. This is where I'm heading towards. Itzan Akmani is one of the residents who opposed an immediate return to the area. She's worried about the effect on her children. They don't feel safe here. Every little noise makes them jump. They asked me to lock the doors and to cover the windows, just like on October 7th, when there was an infiltration threat to the village. When we drive in the car, my young child is hiding because he's afraid that a terrorist will see him and abduct him. It's sad. Moving in between different houses, Itzan is trying to maintain a routine for her family. The kids haven't been in school for a long time now, so when we come here to visit, we practice math in Hebrew so they won't forget. But other families are reaching different solutions, such as this alternative school, which was opened by volunteers a few days ago. After more than two months, as my family started falling apart, I decided that no matter what, I'm coming back home to Ain Habsor. In the first few weeks, I helped my husband, who was a farmer. His high workers left, and the situation was very bad. After a month, I understood that I need to take care of my kids. It's been three months already, and my kids didn't process what happened here on October 7th. They are lacking a social and educational framework. The gaps are enormous. These kids aren't in school since June. Professor Geffner's son, Alon, says he's happy to return. I'm a little bit afraid, but I'm trying to be positive. Ain Habsor was established in 1982 by a group of Jewish settlers who were evacuated from the Yarmid district in the Sinai Peninsula as part of the peace agreement between Israel and Egypt. The Klakeh was a young child when Yarmid was evacuated. Now she faces another separation from her home. However, she says that the situation is completely different to that of 42 years ago. The feeling is very different. When we were evacuated from Sinai, at least from what I remember and from what I was told, the feeling was that the country was taking care of us and that it would help us rebuild our community. Today, no one tells you what will happen tomorrow. It's even difficult to join other communities. Caught between the basic need for security and safety and the traumatic memories of October 7th, and on the other hand, for stability and a strong yearning for home, the people of Ain Habsor, like many other Israelis, are still waiting to decide on their next step. As the war in Gaza continues, and a solution is yet not on the horizon. That's all for this edition of I-24 News. We have rolling coverage providing you with the latest from Israel. We'll be back at the top of the hour for more news and updates. Be sure to follow us on our website, and on our social media platforms. I'm Sivana Ravi. Thank you for watching. Did you know that Martin Luther King's famous 1968 mountaintop speech was based on his trip to the Promised Land? Well now, 55 years later, his prophetic words are coming true. Hundreds of African-American women took a journey of a lifetime to the Holy Land. We'll introduce you to the amazing female spiritual and religious leaders who are infusing new energy to the next generation of African-Americans. For news, I'm Sivana Ravi. And these are the latest developments coming to you live from Tel Aviv. Today is day 96 of Israel's war with Hamas as the fighting continues. The IDF announced that 24-year-old Sergeant First Class in Reserves El Cana Nulander from Efrat was killed fighting yesterday in the central Gaza Strip. He was a combat medic in the 99th Division and is the 186th soldier to be killed in the ground offensive against Hamas. A senior Hezbollah commander Ali Hossein Burji responsible for numerous explosive drone attacks on northern Israel, including a recent strike on an IDF base, was killed in an Israeli air strike in southern Lebanon yesterday. Despite international efforts to prevent escalation, crossfire continues across Israel's northern border with Lebanon. U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken visited Israel once again during his shuttle diplomacy trip to the Middle East this week and addressed the humanitarian crisis in Gaza discussing the phased transition of Israel's military campaign and the efforts to prevent further conflict. Blinken met with Israeli hostage families and also expressed concern about the International Court of Justice submission against Israel rejecting the charge of genocide. Blinken highlighted discussions with regional leaders and their commitment to preventing conflict escalation. Take a listen. The IDF campaign makes this incredibly challenging. But the daily toll on civilians in Gaza particularly on children is far too high as Israel's campaign moves to a lower intensity phase in northern Gaza and as the IDF scales down its forces there we agreed to down a plan for the U.N. to carry out an assessment mission. It will determine what needs to be done to allow displaced Palestinians to return safely to homes in the north. Now, this is not going to happen overnight. There are serious security infrastructure and humanitarian challenges. But the mission will start a process that evaluates these obstacles and how they can be overcome. And joining us now from southern Israel is our I-24 news correspondent, Pierre Kuleshendler. Pierre, what's the situation on the ground? Well, per the IDF overnight there were 150 strikes on presumed terror targets in the central sector of the Gaza Strip especially in the El-Morazi refugee camp and further south in Hanyunas where the operation is deepening. Scores of terrorists have been killed per the IDF. Now, Pierre, according to Lebanese media, Israeli special forces are reportedly conducting intensive intelligence activity in the Sinai Desert in Sudan and in Libya out of fear that Hamas might attempt to smuggle its leaders or the Israeli hostages outside of Gaza. What do we know about this? Well, these are reports emanating from two Arab-language newspaper Al Arab Al Jadid which is a Qatari newspaper and Al-Ahbar a Lebanese newspaper which is close to the terrorist organization Hezbollah. And there is a very sensitive area which the IDF hasn't touched yet. It's the Philadelphia Corridor. It's a strip of a narrow strip of land 13 kilometers long between Egypt and the Gaza Strip. The city of Rafar which numbers unusual times prior to the war 200,000 inhabitants now is inhabited by 1.3 million Palestinians who have displaced themselves from the battleground safer zones of fighting in Rafar. There's only pinpointing targets on presumed terror targets but there is no ground offensive and the fear of the army is that the Hamas will smuggle the leadership both political and military of Hamas as well as the hostages inside Egyptian territory in the Sinai peninsula and then be transferred to Sudan or to Libya which share a border with Egypt and eventually reach Lebanon or Iran. And as a result special units of intelligence of the IDF are operating in those areas in order to check that no such smuggling of people will occur. Pierre Klossendler down on Israel's southern border. Thank you very much. Joining us now in studio is former Senior Intelligence Officer at the IDF and Security Analyst Rafael Roussalmi. Thank you for coming in. We're hearing our reporter Pierre Klossendler speak about these reports according to Lebanese media of a concern that Israel has that hostages, Israeli hostages and possibly Hamas leaders may be smuggled out of the Gaza Strip. So far as we know Egyptians are being very vigilant on their side of the border and we know that the weak spot is the possibility of tunnels going from Gaza into Sinai. Right now we do trust the Egyptians in a way because the Hamas has asked no later than last night even for some Arab countries to supply it with more weapons. These weapons can only arrive into Gaza through these tunnels so the Egyptians have no interest in seeing these weapons arrive and they are doing their job patrolling all the famous Philadelphia Road etc. We still cannot operate freely we would want to strike harder in this area of Rafael and Philadelphia Road but the Egyptians are the masters there and they do not want us to interfere at least not without coordinating with them. So far we do estimate that the hostages and the high ranking leaders of the Hamas are still in Gaza they haven't taken this escape route which is not that easy to take anyway but still would they do that it might not be such a terrible thing because if they start moving and moving the hostages that's when we have a chance to get them because right now they are underground in Hanyunis or somewhere in the south of Gaza not moving at all in bunkers and the hostages are used as human shields for the high leaders of the Hamas would they start moving it's always like that like when you have an element in the killing it's because the person is on the move as soon as they are on the move it would actually give us a chance to recuperate the hostages and hit Hamas leaders so it's very dangerous for them to move would they succeed in moving would they actually reach Lebanon and Iran maybe Egypt and in Egypt they would have a problem to move freely and then to reach Sudan all this is not so simple to accomplish but would they you have to think that the deal would be the same I mean whether the hostages are held in Gaza or they are held in Tehran when it comes to negotiating the liberation the conditions and the negotiations will be the same does it really matter where they are held Well I think that for many for Israelis especially hearing this kind of the idea that these hostages may be lost around the world may be transported elsewhere is catastrophic Well they might be better treated than being at the hands of the Hamas terrorists because right now unfortunately for them and for us psychologically they are held by very ferocious people of no heart, no conscience it might be that if for instance they are in Tehran they will be judged as a political asset and the Iranians might treat them better because they would be like a card for negotiations for the claims it might as I'm saying it's not necessarily a bad thing that they would be moved out and first of all you know what I'm going to be a bit silly but the fact that you just move might be good for them psychologically and just to take your breath of fresh air might just be good for them because right now they are stuck in one dark room they haven't moved they haven't seen the sunlight for weeks so I don't see what's the tragedy in the fact that they are moved from one place to another or to even to another country even when you speak of the almost impossible mission of attacking them really and liberate them in some kind of anti-best-style operation this might be also easier to accomplish abroad than it is inside the tunnels of Gaza so all in all I would be so worried about it and as I said wherever they will be they cannot be treated worse only better than where they are now and the deals that will be struck if they are struck will be the same the conditions will be the same so the only difference now is really to neutralize these tunnels to make sure because what we do not want is the Hamas leaders to escape and I don't think they will take that chance because I'm telling you they will have such a network from the Sinai which they do have they have a complicit mostly the Bedouin tribes you know they work for the the most so no problem to have a complicity there and bribe the police Egyptian police for a few dollars but then to go on inside Egyptian territory there is still the Egyptian intelligence in the Egyptian military there then to cross the border into Sudan or Libya this is not so easily done not easily achievable so you see the positive in perhaps such a move and all of this is according to Lebanese media I repeat we should start seeing the positive now that is there in general of course let's talk about the Philadelphia corridor you mentioned it this is a contentious area to be discussed by Israel with Egypt what's the source of the conflict regarding this region well really the Egyptians they are kind of a double standard on the one hand they say they are sovereign states and the Sinai it's theirs and the border between Gaza and Egypt is under their control their responsibility the Israelis don't have to mess up with Rafah and the Philadelphia road it's under Egyptian control on the other hand they wash their hands of anything that has to do with Gaza they don't want to do anything to help the humanitarian situation they do not want to participate in the day after security needs of the Gaza Strip they don't want to do anything so this is a contradiction that we have to deal with we are used over the I mean I've worked with the Egyptians for many many years we are used to this difficulty it's very difficult to work with them it's very frustrating but in the end we do reach agreements we do which solutions it's just painstaking and I think with the Rafiach problem we will reach some kind of understanding with the Egyptians they are already letting us operate militarily so we'll see until what level of intensity of operations they allow us to work and the rest they will say that they are doing the job and we are trusting them more or less because it is in their interest wouldn't that be in their interest we might not trust them to do the job but it is also in their interest that these tunnels should be blocked and that there should be any free movement between Gaza and the Sinai whether it's hostages, terrorists or weapons on the other side the Egyptians are not interested that this Rafiach border will be a border that can be crossed so easily by the Hamas and for its own interest right so that's the border with Egypt what about northern Gaza the IDF says that the north of Gaza is under control more strategic fighting needs to be done in the central and southern areas of Gaza now how is this to be executed this kind of pinpointed military operations in the southern area of Gaza the north is going to start looking a lot like the West Bank meaning you have at the day after we'll have to find some kind of a solution who sits there is there a police force a Palestinian police force an international force we don't know right now there's nobody make law and order and security in the north of Gaza is the IDF but the IDF doesn't have to sit inside the northern part of the Gaza Strip anymore because we are in control generally of that part of the Gaza Strip we can be on the outskirts of this area and only come in when needed which is the West Bank we do not have to sit in the West Bank with our troops we only go in or in Naples when there is a need or when we have the intel that can lead us to terrorists so this can be done this should be done also at the end the day after that's what should be done there will be an interim period between the end of the war if we reach that our objective and there is no more Hamas as a ruler there will be Hamas but not as a ruler between the end of the war and the day after that means when we have taken dreams off there will be an interim period where only the IDF can ensure the security in the Gaza Strip it will have to be ensured like being on the outskirts or being on a belt around the Strip and only going in with raids or incursions when need be not to sit there, not to occupy we do not want to stay there it's dangerous for our soldiers we know that there will be even when Hamas loses the rule and control of Gaza there will still be pockets of hard nut terrorists being able to act even if there are only a few but they are dangerous the problem with the Washington administration is they want to reach the day after we are not even in the day before it's really too early they won't even want the population already to go back to the north there is nowhere to go everything is in ruins, you have to rebuild first so you are saying they are trying to fast track a process that is in the midst of thank you very much Israel recently appointed a former Supreme Court Chief to serve at the International Court of Justice Genocide hearings in the hog on Friday he will be tasked with defending the Jewish state against the claims made by South Africa which would follow the case put forth earlier. Our political and international first correspondent Bhatia Leventhal explains who Aharon Balak is and what his case will be and if he is likely to win. Take a look on the 11th and 12th of January the International Court of Justice stage will be set and the question will be asked is Israel guilty of genocide in Gaza apart from the 15 permanent members of the ICJ both parties made themselves nominated judge to join the deliberations the South African ruling ANC party has tapped its representative Israel's pick was Aharon Balak as a former Supreme Court Chief he is well respected internationally but despite being recommended by Benjamin Netanyahu himself Balak is anything but an ally of the incumbent Israeli government they demonstrated against him they made him the enemy of the nation but at the moment of truth the Israeli government also realized that he was a knowledgeable and respected expert in the world and therefore the Prime Minister chose him to be a judge on behalf of the State of Israel and the Hague I hope they also apologize to him South Africa aims to prove Israel is indiscriminately killing civilians in the Gaza Strip they will likely show footage of many destroyed residential buildings, hospitals, schools and mosques as well as those injured so as to make their case in defense Balak will likely use this as his main argument it is not we who have come to perpetrate genocide, it is Hamas it would murder all of us if it could in contrast, the IDF is acting as morally as possible it is doing everything to avoid harming civilians while Hamas is doing everything to harm them and is using them as human shields Israel has also set to screen a compilation of harrowing scenes of torture, rape decapitation, murder and kidnapping from the October 7th onslaught match of which was filmed by Hamas themselves the proof is there, but it will not all go Israel's way there will be evidence too that will reflect poorly on the Jewish state more than 70% of the Israeli public today supports a humanitarian solution of encouraging the voluntary immigration of gardens and their absorption in other countries we cannot afford the reality where 2 million people wake up every morning with the aspiration to murder us the evidence supporting Israel's case is plentiful but Barak is up against a hostile state and world body either way the panel needs to consider their arguments and review the supporting files the big question is if there is indeed a case of genocide and if so will justice be served and to whom meanwhile US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken commented on this claim yesterday emphasizing the irony of accusing Israel of committing genocide while Iran and its regional proxies are in fact the ones calling out for the mass murder of Jews, take a listen Hamas Hezbollah the Houthis as well as their support of Iran continue to openly call for the annihilation of Israel and the mass murder of Jews Joining us now is Professor of International Law at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem Robbie Sable thank you for joining thank you for having me Robbie Israeli media reports that the Shin Bet chief recommended showing evidence of Hamas ties to UNRWA and aimed to quote embarrass the United Nations now today this was released by UN watch that a telegram group of thousands of teachers in Gaza celebrated in their posts the Hamas atrocities is addressing all of these things a smart move for Israel that won't be the main fuss of Israel's defense Israel's defense will be whatever happened here was not genocide it was an attempt to genocide and we'll try and prove that by the fact that we took tremendous efforts to avoid civilian casualties they're not in our interest moving the population away from battle scenes was meant and helped prevent civilian casualties in other words rather than trying to kill civilians we made a tremendous effort to prevent it as opposed to Hamas whose objective was to kill civilians that would be the main fuss of Israel's defense at the court and what do we know about the judges who will be participating in this panel tomorrow and on Friday we must bear in mind that the judges appointed by the UN General Assembly with the approval of the Security Council which means they reflect the these build up of the General Assembly and there's a lot of states that are not democratic hostile to Israel some of them have judges on the court many of the judges are fair impartial and comfortable democracies but some don't and we have to bear that it's not the court of law that we would have chosen it's not composed of 15 impartial judges some of them are impartial some are clearly not we'll have a judge for instance from the Lebanon from Somalia, these people are not going to be objective and unhappily we have to take this into consideration and Aharon Barak will be on the panel of judges how will he be participating in this I think they'll give him the respect due to an eminent jurist who's fought for human rights in Israel he was a lecturer at Harvard but he'll be one judge among 17 and I hope he can influence them we can't be certain of that now we know that Israeli ministers have made several comments about voluntary immigration of the Gaza population how will this be hurting Israel's case voluntary immigration is not a crime and it's not Israeli's policy but it's perfectly legitimate for say look those who want to can leave there's immigration from every country in the world if so long as it's voluntary and there was no talk about making it involuntary it's not a crime whether it's wise politically or not is a different issue but it's certainly not a violation of the laws of war or war crime to say people will voluntarily want to leave Gaza and by the way as far as I know many of them would like to if they had the opportunity they'll be very happy to move to other countries now how long will this case take there's two stages the first stage is South Africa's asking for an interim order for Israel to stop fighting and this will take there'll be two days of hearing that's tomorrow and Friday and normally the decision will be given within a week or so then the actual case can take years and I don't think that's what South Africa is interested in they're interested in trying to get an order to stop Israel fighting because it's harming Hamas and they're in this case with Hamas so the first stage will be to try and get an interim order against Israel to cease fighting and the actual case I think will be matter of years ahead do we know what kind of proof South Africa will present to make this case yes they'll quote the statements by Israeli politicians and they'll say look so many civilians have been killed that's proof that it was an attempt to genocide and of course Israel's answer would be we made every effort to minimize the civilian casualties and Hamas was interested in they put their arms, their rockets next to civilians civilian buildings in mosques, next to hospitals in order to increase civilian casualties to be able to prove that that's what Israel's doing this will be the crux of the discussion of the dispute between them and the court and again how the judges decide the judges who are not impartial now briefly just so that the public understands why is South Africa taking the lead on this to begin with why is it within their interest do you think is this a moral obligation they feel in light of their own history I think it's a combination of two they want to prove they're anti-west and they say Israel is a bastion of the western world they want to carry favor with the Arab states and also they have a background of the PLO supported the anti-apartheid regime and they feel a moral duty to support the Palestinians so it's a combination of the two they want to help the Palestinians but to prove that South Africa is leading the third world against the west so I think it's a combination of these two elements now do we know what steps the court will take in the final ruling can they give a warrant to Israel to stop its hostilities so-called hostilities its operations I don't know what they do South Africa wants them to issue an order to Israel stop fighting and what the court will do we don't know but that's the request of South Africa that Israel should be ordered to stop fighting and therefore save the Hamas leadership which apparently South Africa wants to do and do we know that the Hamas atrocities will they be presented in this court case we will present again and as far as I know we'll even present a film filmed by the Hamas people themselves showing that they went out to murder and to rape and to destroy we will be showing this and it's part of the element that Israel act in self-defense we didn't attack Hamas and that's something the world seems to be ignoring and Israel's when attacked we do defend ourselves and this is certainly one of the most documented atrocities that is out there and can be proven by Hamas themselves by Hamas operatives themselves Hamas terrorists thank you very much Robby Sable thank you that's all for this edition of i24 news we have rolling coverage providing you with the latest from Israel we'll be back at the top of the hour for more news and updates be sure to follow us on our website i24news.tv and across our social media platforms I'm Sivanrave thank you for watching 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 lines but the general perception is something that certainly needs to to be fought as well for news I'm Sivanrave and these are the latest developments coming to you live from Tel Aviv today is day 96 of Israel's war with Hamas as the fighting continues the IDF announced that 24 year old sergeant 1st class in reserves Elkanan Nulander from Efrat was killed fighting yesterday in the central Gaza Strip he was a combat medic in the 99th division and is the 186th soldier to be killed in the ground offensive against Hamas a senior Hezbollah commander Ali Hossein Burji responsible for numerous explosive drone attacks on northern Israel during a recent strike on an IDF base was killed in an Israeli air strike in southern Lebanon yesterday despite international efforts to prevent escalation crossfire continues across Israel's northern border with Lebanon US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken visited Israel once again during his shuttle diplomacy trip to the Middle East this week and address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza discussing the phase transition of Israel's military campaign and the efforts to prevent further conflict with Israeli hostage families and also expressed concern about the international court of justice submission against Israel rejecting the charge of genocide Blinken highlighted discussions with regional leaders and their commitment to preventing conflict escalation take a listen we know that facing an enemy that embeds itself among civilians who hides in and fires from schools from hospitals makes this incredibly challenging but the daily toll on civilians in Gaza particularly on children is far too high as Israel's campaign moves to a lower intensity phase in northern Gaza and as the IDF scales down its forces there we agreed to down a plan for the UN to carry out an assessment mission it will determine what needs to be done to allow displaced Palestinians to return safely to homes in the north now this is not going to happen overnight there are serious security infrastructure and humanitarian challenges but the mission will start a process that evaluates these obstacles and how they can be overcome and joining us now from southern Israel is our I-24 news correspondent Pierre Kuleshendler Pierre what's the situation on the ground well per the IDF overnight there were 150 strikes on presumed terror targets in the central sector of the Gaza Strip especially in the El-Morazi refugee camp and further south in Hanyunas where the operation is deepening scores of terrorists have been killed per the IDF now Pierre according to Lebanese media Israeli special forces are reportedly conducting intensive intelligence activity in the Sinai desert in Sudan and in Libya out of fear that Hamas might attempt to smuggle its leaders or the Israeli hostages outside of Gaza what do we know about this well these are reports emanating from two Arab language newspaper Arab Al-Jadid which is a Qatari newspaper and Al-Akhbar a Lebanese newspaper which is close to the terrorist organization Hezbollah and there is a very sensitive area which the IDF hasn't touched yet in the Philadelphia corridor it's a strip of narrow strip of land 13 kilometers long between Egypt and the Gaza Strip the city of Rafar which numbers in usual times prior to the war 200,000 inhabitants now is inhabited by 1.3 million Palestinians who have displaced themselves from the battleground to safer zones in Rafar there's only pinpointing targets on presumed terror targets but there is no ground offensive and the fear of the armies that the Hamas will smuggle the leadership both political and military of Hamas as well as the hostages inside Egyptian territory in the Sinai Peninsula and then be transferred to Sudan to Libya which are which share a border with Egypt and eventually reach Lebanon or Iran and as a result special units of intelligence of the IDF are operating in those areas in order to check that no such smuggling of people will occur. Joining us now in studio is our senior intelligence officer at the IDF and security analyst thank you for coming in we're hearing our reporter these reports according to Lebanese media of a concern that Israel has that hostages, Israeli hostages and possibly Hamas leaders may be smuggled out of the Gaza Strip so far as we know the Egyptians are being very vigilant on their side of the border and we know that the weak spot is the possibility of tunnels going from Gaza into Sinai right now we do trust the Egyptians in a way because the Hamas has asked no later than last night even for some Arabic countries to supply it with more weapons these weapons can only arrive from Sinai into Gaza through these tunnels so the Egyptians have no interest in seeing these weapons arrive and they are doing their job patrolling all the famous Fila Delphi Road etc we still cannot operate freely we want to strike harder in this area of Rafiakh and Fila Delphi Road but the Egyptians are the masters there and they do not want us to interfere at least not without coordinating with them so so far we do estimate that the hostages and the high ranking leaders of the Hamas are still in Gaza they haven't taken this escape route which is not that easy to take anyway but still would they do that it might not be such a terrible thing because if they start moving and moving the hostages that's when we have a chance to get them because right now they are underground in Hanyunis or somewhere in the south of Gaza not moving at all in bunkers and the hostages are used as human shields for the high leaders of the Hamas would they start moving it's always like that like when you have an eliminated killing it's because the person is on the move as soon as they are on the move it will actually give us a chance to recuperate the hostages and hit Hamas leaders so it's very dangerous for them to move would they succeed in moving would they actually reach Lebanon and Iran? I doubt it very much maybe in Egypt they would have a problem to move freely and then to reach Sudan all this is not so simple to accomplish but would they you have to think that the deal would be the same I mean whether the hostages are held in Gaza or they are held in Tehran when it comes to negotiating the liberation the conditions and the negotiations will be the same does it really matter where they are held? Well I think that for many for Israelis especially hearing this kind of the idea that these hostages may be lost around the world maybe transported elsewhere is catastrophic well they might be better treated than being at the hands of the Hamas terrorists because right now unfortunately for them and for us psychologically they are held by very ferocious people people who have no heart, no conscience it might be that if for instance they are in Tehran they will be judged as a political asset and the Iranians might treat them better because they would be like a card for negotiations for the claims it might not as I'm saying it's not necessarily a bad thing that they would be moved out and first of all you know what I'm gonna be a bit silly but the fact that you just move might be good for them psychologically just to take a breath of fresh air might just be good for them because right now they are stuck in one dark room they haven't moved, they haven't seen the sunlight for weeks so I don't see what's the tragedy in the fact that they are moved from one place to another or even to another country even when you speak of the almost impossible mission of attacking them militarily and liberate them in some kind of textile operation this might be also easier to accomplish abroad than it is inside the tunnels of Gaza so all in all I would be so worried about it and as I said wherever they will be they cannot be treated worse only better than when they are now and the deals that will be struck if they are struck will be the same the conditions will be the same so the only difference now is we need to neutralize these tunnels to make sure because what we do not want is the Hamas leaders to escape and I don't think they will take that chance because I'm telling you they will have such a network from the Sinai which they do have, they have accomplices mostly the Bedouin tribes they work for the most so no problem to have a complicity there you can bribe the police, Egyptian police for a few dollars but then to go on inside Egyptian territory there is still the Egyptian intelligence in the Egyptian military there then to cross the border into Sudan or Libya this is not so easily done not easily achievable so you see the positive in perhaps such a move and all of this is according to Lebanese media I repeat we should start seeing the positive now because the negative we know that is there let's talk about the Philadelphia corridor you mentioned it this is a contentious area to be discussed by Israel with Egypt what's the source of the conflict regarding this region? well really the Egyptians they are kind of a double standard on the one hand they say they are a sovereign state and the Sinai is theirs and the border between Gaza and Egypt is under their control their responsibility they don't have to mess up with Rafa and the Philadelphia road it's under Egyptian control on the other hand they wash their hands of anything that has to do with Gaza they don't want to do anything to help the humanitarian situation they do not want to participate in the day after security needs of the Gaza Strip they don't want to do anything so this is a contradiction that we have to deal with we are used over the I mean I've worked with the Egyptians for many many years we are used to this difficulty it's very difficult to work with them it's very frustrating but in the end we do reach agreements we do reach solutions it's just painstaking and I think with their Afiach problem we will reach some kind of understanding with the Egyptians they're already letting us operate militarily we will see until what level of intensity of operations they allow us to to work and the rest they will say that they're doing the job and we are trusting them more or less because it is in their interest we might not trust them to do the job but it is also in their interest that these tunnels should be blocked and that there should be any free movement between Gaza and Sinai whether it's hostages, terrorists side the Egyptians are not interested that this Rafah border will be a border that can be crossed so easily by the Hamas and for its own interest right so that's the border with Egypt what about northern Gaza the IDF says that the north of Gaza is under control more strategic fighting needs to be done in the central and southern areas of Gaza now how is this to be executed pinpointed military operations in the southern area of Gaza well the the north is going to start looking a lot like the west bank meaning you have at the day after we'll have to find some kind of a solution who sits there, is there a police force a Palestinian police force an international force we don't know right now there's nobody the only force that can make law and order and security in the north of Gaza is the IDF so but the IDF doesn't have to sit inside the northern part of the Gaza Strip anymore because we are in control generally of that part of the Gaza Strip we can be on the outskirts of this area and only come in when needed which is the west bank, we do not have to sit in the west bank with our troops we only go into Jenin or Naples when there is a need and we have the intel that can lead us to terrorists so this can be done this should be done also at the end, the day after that's what should be done, there will be an interim period between the end of the war if we reach our objectives and there is no more Hamas as a ruler there will be Hamas but not as a ruler between the end of the war and the day after that means Blinken and dreams of there will be an interim period where only the IDF can ensure the security in the Gaza Strip it will have to be ensured like being on the outskirts or being on a belt around the Strip and only going in with raids or incursions when need be, not to sit there not to occupy, we do not want to stay there, it's dangerous for our soldiers we know that there will be even if the Hamas loses the rule and control of Gaza, there will still be pockets of hard nut terrorists being able to act even if only a few but they are dangerous the problem with their Washington administration is they want to reach the day after, we are not even in the day before, right? I mean it's really too early, they won't even want the population already to go back to the north, there's nowhere to go, there's nothing to go back to everything is in ruins, you have to rebuild first so you're saying they're trying to fast-track a process that is in the midst of it? Yeah, but too much thank you very much Rafael Israel recently appointed a former Supreme Court Chief to serve at the International Court of Justice Genocide hearings in the Hague on Friday he will be tasked with defending the Jewish State against the claims made by South Africa which would follow the case put forth by the accusing side a day earlier correspondent Bhatia Leventhal explains who Aharon Balak is and what his case will be and if he is likely to win, take a look on the 11th and 12th of January the International Court of Justice stage will be set and the question will be asked is Israel guilty of genocide in Gaza apart from the 15 permanent members of the ICJ both parties made themselves nominated judge to join the deliberations the South African ruling ANC party representative Israel's pick was Aharon Barak as a former Supreme Court Chief he is well respected internationally but despite being recommended by Benjamin Netanyahu himself Barak is anything but an ally of the incumbent Israeli government they demonstrated against him they made him the enemy of the nation but at the moment of truth the Israeli government also realized that he was a knowledgeable and respected legal expert in the world and therefore the minister chose him to be a judge on behalf of the state of Israel and the Hague I hope they also apologized to him South Africa aims to prove Israel is indiscriminately killing civilians in the Gaza Strip they will likely show footage of many destroyed residential buildings, hospitals, schools and mosques as well as those injured so as to make their case in defense Barak will likely use this as his main argument it is not we who have come to perpetrate genocide it is Hamas it would murder all of us if it could in contrast the IDF is acting as morally as possible it is doing everything to avoid harming civilians while Hamas is doing everything to harm them and is using them as human shields Israel has also set to screen a compilation of harrowing scenes of torture, rape, decapitation, murder and kidnapping from the October 7th onslaught which was filmed by Hamas themselves the proof is there but it will not all go Israel's way there will be evidence too that will reflect poorly on the Jewish state more than 70% of the Israeli public today supports a humanitarian solution of encouraging the voluntary immigration of gardens and their absorption in other countries we cannot afford a reality where 2 million people wake up every morning with the aspiration to murder us the evidence supporting Israel's case is plentiful but Baraki is up against a hostile state and world body either way the panel needs to consider their arguments and review the supporting files the big question is if there is indeed a case of genocide and if so will justice be served and to whom meanwhile US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken commented on this claim yesterday emphasizing the irony of accusing Israel of committing genocide while Iran and its regional proxies are in fact the ones calling out for the mass murder of Jews take a listen joining us now is professor of international law the Hebrew University of Jerusalem Robby Sable thank you for joining thank you for having me Robby Israeli media reports that the Shin Bet chief recommended showing evidence of Hamas ties to UNRWA and aimed to quote embarrass the United Nations and that's why we are here today we are here today we are here today to embarrass the United Nations now today this was released by UN watch that a telegram group of thousands of teachers in Gaza celebrated in their posts the Hamas atrocities is addressing all of these things a smart move for Israel that won't be the main fuss of Israel's defense Israel's defense will be whatever happened here was not genocide was not an attempt to genocide and we'll try and prove that by the fact that we took tremendous efforts to avoid civilian casualties they're not in our interest moving the population away from battle scenes was met and helped prevent civilian casualties in other words rather than trying to kill civilians we made a tremendous effort to prevent it as opposed to Hamas whose objective was to kill civilians and that would be the main fuss of Israel's defense at the court and what do we know about the judges who will be participating in this panel tomorrow and on Friday we must bear in mind that the judges appointed by the UN General Assembly with approval of the Security Council which means they reflect the these build up of the General Assembly and there's a lot of states that are not Democratic hostile to Israel and some of them have judges on the court many of the judges are fair, impartial and come from democracies but some don't and we have to bear that it's not the court of law that we would have chosen it's not composed of 15 impartial judges some of them are impartial some are clearly not we'll have a judge for instance from the Lebanon from Somalia these people are not going to be objective and unhappily we have to take this into consideration and Aharon Barak who will be on the panel of judges how does this, how will he be how will he be participating in this I think they'll give him the respect due to an eminent jurist who's fought for human rights in Israel he's lectured aboard he was lectured at Harvard but he'll be one judge among 17 and I hope he can influence them we can't be certain of that now we know that Israeli ministers have made several comments about the voluntary immigration of the Gaza population how will this be hurting Israel's case voluntary immigration is not a crime and it's not Israeli's policy but it's perfectly legitimate for say look those who want to can leave there's immigration from every country in the world if so long as it's voluntary and there was no talk about it making it involuntary whether it's wise politically or not is a different issue but it's certainly not a violation of the laws of war or war crime to say people who voluntarily want to leave Gaza and by the way as far as I know many of them would like to if they had the opportunity they'll be very happy to move to other countries now how long will this case take there's two stages the first stage is South Africa's asking for an interim order for Israel to stop fighting and this will take there'll be two days of hearing that's tomorrow and Friday and normally the decision will be given within a week or so then the actual case can take years and I don't think that's what South Africa's interested in they're interested in trying to get an order to stop Israel fighting because it's harming Hamas and they're allying in this case with Hamas so the first stage will be to try and get an interim order against Israel to cease fighting and the actual case I think will be years ahead do we know what kind of proof South Africa will present to make this case yes they'll quote the statements by Israeli politicians and they'll say look so many civilians have been killed that's proof that it was an attempt to genocide and of course the answer would be we made every effort to raise the civilian casualties and Hamas was interested in they put their arms, their rockets next to civilians civilian buildings in mosques next to hospitals in order to increase civilian casualties to be able to prove that that's what Israel's doing this will be the crux of the discussion of the dispute between them and the court and again how the judges will decide the judges are not impartial I don't know now you know briefly just so that the public understands why is South Africa taking the lead on this to begin with why is it within their interest do you think is this a moral obligation they feel in light of their own history I think it's a combination of two they want to prove they're anti-west and they say Israel is a bastion of the western world they want to carry favor with the Arab states the background of fact that the PLO supported the anti-apartheid regime and they feel a moral duty to support the Palestinians so it's a combination of the two they want to help the Palestinians but to prove that South Africa is leading the third world against the west so I think it's a combination of these two elements now do we know what steps the court can take until the final ruling can they give a warrant to Israel to stop its hostilities so-called hostilities its operations I don't know what they do South Africa wants them to issue an order to Israel to stop fighting and what the court will do we don't know but that's the request of South Africa that Israel should be ordered to stop fighting and therefore save the Hamas leadership which apparently South Africa wants to do and do we know that the Hamas atrocities will they be presented in this court case we will present again and as far as I know we'll even present in a film filmed by the Hamas people themselves showing that they went out to murder and to rape and to destroy we will be showing this it's part of the element that Israel act in self-defense we didn't attack Hamas and that's something the world seems to be ignoring when it attacks we do defend ourselves and this is certainly one of the most documented atrocities that is out there and can be proven and by Hamas operatives themselves Hamas terrorists thank you very much Robby Sable thank you that's all for this edition of i24 news we have rolling coverage providing you with the latest from Israel we'll be back at the top of the hour for more news and updates follow us on our website i24news.tv and across our social media platforms I'm Siobhan Ravi, thank you for watching Art Luther King's famous 1968 mountaintop speech was based on his trip to the promised land well now, 55 years later his prophetic words are coming true hundreds of African American women took a journey of a lifetime to the holy land we'll introduce you to the amazing female spiritual religious leaders who are infusing new energy into the next generation of African Americans welcome to i24 news I'm Siobhan Ravi and these are the latest developments coming to you live from Tel Aviv today is day 96 of Israel's war with Hamas as the fighting continues the IDF announced the 24-year-old Sergeant 1st Class in Reserves Elkanan Nulander from Efrat was killed fighting yesterday in the central Gaza Strip he was a combat medic in the 99th division and is the 186th soldier to be killed in the ground offensive against Hamas a senior Hezbollah commander Ali Hussain Burji responsible for numerous explosive drone attacks on northern Israel including a recent strike on an IDF base was killed in an Israeli air strike in southern Lebanon yesterday despite international efforts to prevent escalation crossfire continues across Israel's northern border with Lebanon US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken once again during his shuttle diplomacy trip to the Middle E