have to understand that many of those ghazans are victims of hamas just like we israelis are victims of hamas and i can talk personally that i was today in a funeral and and many of my family were either brutally abducted or killed but we have to understand that the fact that we were hit so badly by really war criminal acts by hamas doesn't take from us the responsibility to be rational and humane in the way we respond to ghaza and i hope that first of all we will prioritize bringing the abductees back home that should be the priority because we can always hit hamas later and secondly whatever we do to eradicate the capabilities of hamas as i said we cannot take hamas completely but to eradicate their capabilities we have to do it in a way that will minimize the damage for the civilians in ghaza absolutely and just before we we bring in our next guest there is newly released footage that is coming out showing how the hamas terrorist open fire at people hiding in the portable toilets of the festival that was near every earm again i'll remind our viewers this was the peace festival where around 260 people were butchered in an open field area they were there to celebrate peace just absolutely unbelievable when we have those images that have just been coming out we'll show them through to you but in the meantime let's move now to another personal testimony of some of those tragedies that are unfolding here in israel i'm joined by al haramati the grandson of varda haramati who was murdered by hamas in kibbutz rayim near the israel ghaza border firstly thank you so very much for for joining us here on our breaking news editions of the i-24 news desk how are you and your family is the rest of you safe hi um thank you very much for having me uh me and the rest of my family are safe now uh i live in hodosh alone which is a little near the central of israel um i have many family that lived in the kibbutz and kibbutz rayim they're all in elat right now um they had to evict the kibbutz they can't stay there right now and unfortunately we didn't even have a few in a row yet for my grandma so the situation is pretty pretty bad you know i can only but begin to try and imagine what you and your family must be going through um can i ask you to talk a little bit about your grandmother and exactly what happened to her yes so it happened october 7th um i woke up in the morning at 6 30 to the first sirens um i was so confused it was it never happened that we have sirens out in hodosh alone i was really worried because there was nothing that indicated this prior to october 7 and when i woke up in the morning i called my sisters and my family to see if everybody's safe because i was very worried about everyone i didn't know what was happening i was scared um and then i got a call from my sister she screamed at the phone i was so i was i can remember her screams until now she was screaming grandma was shot grandma was shot she's dead she's dead and i would i just woke up i was so confused it's been half an hour i we didn't know anything like what's happening what's going on um and and i was just so scared i rushed to my sister's house she lives next to me and we were trying to process everything and trying to reach out to our family in the kibbutz and um we were texting our cousin we're asking him is this true what's happening are you safe he was texting us from the shelter no it's true she was shot dead she's in her bed boss found her boss is her partner he rushed to her the moment he heard that terrorists are in the kibbutz and he found her already dead in the bed my grandma was such a loving person and she would feed the neighborhood cat all the time and she usually doesn't listen to all the alarms and all the warnings that she gets so what we think happened is that she forgot to lock her house and she just went into the shelter and then they broke into her house that's what we think happened but we don't really know if they broke in or they just the door was unlocked but it's just awful because she was helpless she was an 81 year old woman she couldn't do anything and we were speaking to our cousins to see if they're safe at least they were hiding in their shelters they couldn't speak on the phone because they couldn't make any noise because they were running into houses they were breaking into houses they were trying to burn houses for people to come out one of my cousins he got hit by a rocket fragment in his hand and he had to go through surgery but he's safe now and it's just awful that this is the end of her story because she was such a loving person she had two kids seven grandchilds and she had one great granddaughter that was born less than three months ago and all she wanted in the rest of her years alive was to spend time with family and you know share her time with friends family cook for us be with us you know that's all they have left in that age like that's all they hold on to she she grew up in the kibbutz all of her life she loved Israel so much she loved her kibbutz she would never leave it not even when the worst times with the rockets and with all the terror attacks from the sky but who would have thought that it would come into their own homes you know just the images that we're seeing on the screen show just such a warm grandmother who just has almost just unconditional love for her children and her grandchildren I understand your grandmother's partner boy as as you mentioned hid with her body for over 12 hours at what point did anyone official get hold of your family to update you what had happened to your grandmother so um they were actually in the house while she was dead for 28 hours before they came and evict her because the kibbutz was under attack all day and until the IDF and the security forces came and rescued them it was not before like 11 p.m and they couldn't even bring in you know an ambulance or like anybody to come evict her because there was so much terror going around not only kibbutz rain but kibbutz berry which is right next to the kibbutz and the whole kibbutz is near the strip they were all going through their terrors and there was just not enough force to even come evict her when the IDF took back control so he he laid next to her with her in the shelter for 28 hours before they could even come help them Ayal Haramali the grandson of Arda Hammari who was murdered by Hamas in kibbutz rain near the Israel Gaza border Ayal our hearts and our thoughts are with you and your family and hopefully you are able to put your grandmother to rest sometimes soon thank you very much thank you for having me thank you for joining us and still in that area of southern Israel Reim is not only just the kibbutz but also just near that kibbutz an area where the party known as the massacre that happened 260 people were butchered at a peace party i'd like to remind you all the time that we are looking at disturbing images but what you're looking at right now on your screen is Hamas terrorists targeting the public toilets at this party not even bothering to open the doors but simply just shooting indiscriminately as they walk past we've also been given accounts that many people that were working at the bar area at this party were hiding in the refrigerators of which we were told that Hamas terrorists opened the refrigerators found them and shot them as well and still continuing the conversation in studio it's some of these testimonies it's it's at a loss for words and and as anchors that's a hard one for us because that's quite literally our job but it's so difficult because these are so raw and such human testimonies what would be the message to the Israeli public right now that even on seven days of war some still don't know what's happened to their family members whether they've been killed whether they've been taken into Gaza or at this point could many of them still possibly be in hiding well i don't have any comforting words as i said i was in a funeral today i also have family in re'im i lost family members in beri and i'm participating in a headquarters of you know civilians who are trying to help the families of the abductees and there's a lot of work many people are trying to help but for the families it's very hard to to bring comfort and i know that the blood is boiling and people are in anxiety it's the worst we ever had i mean the yom kippur war was also a surprise attack and very devastating but it was all soldiers and people are more prepared when soldiers are being killed but not civilians who were taken from their beds so this is indeed very devastating and not only you know anchors find if i find it hard to find the words but also diplomats like me it's very devastating we are getting word out at the moment that the idf has said that there will be almost a safe passage or corridor for garrisons to be able to flee up until 8 p.m local time that the idf will not target that area until 8 p.m local time um yesterday i was actually stationed in the south at the barzilei hospital in ashkelon where mary mccollif is now and and there was something that really stayed with me and i'm wondering if for the last minute of the broadcast if you'll touch on it one of the reservists was there looking after um his mother or father i believe was in hospital um so he is on standby but not being called up and he said to me there's a terrible sense of guilt with a lot of reservists that can't be brought up and i said i know i agree i didn't serve in the army and i have that sense of guilt he says no we shouldn't have that guilt because you are serving the country by broadcasting these images to the world the people that are donating food are serving the country by helping our brothers and sisters is that the takeaway here that humanity more certain terrorism just rises above it all yeah the solidarity is unbelievable uh you know we almost forgot that a few weeks ago um more than half of the country were demonstrating protesting and they were called anarchists by the government and now everybody are in this together trying to help the victims trying to help the soldiers putting the politics aside and the same mechanisms that we're organizing the demonstrations are now organizing the humanitarian aid which is an amazing show that israel is much more than its government and politics thanks for watching israel is officially in a state of war this is a very active scene and we need to get in the car as we're talking within a hundred soldiers and civilians have been kidnapped because we don't know what to do we just don't know anything entire families including babies and children and elderly were butchered in their beds awaken the giant and we are ready and we are strong everyone is showing up this is the unity made for me a unique concept in israel custom made men's fashion to your measurements made for me designer of all your events schedule your appointment at www.madeforme.co.il made for me official dresser of i24 news good evening ladies and gentlemen and breaking news coverage here on i24 news it is day seven of war here in israel over the past week the death toll has risen more than 1,300 people were murdered by hamas with close to 3,300 wounded by their combined attacks rocket alert sirens continue to blare throughout communities in the south with some homes taking direct hits but thankfully no casualties in recent hours the guards and terror group has expanded their reach by launching rockets at both central and even northern israel as well let's cross now live to our correspondent robert swift who is standing by for us near the israel-lebanon border robert thanks for joining us this evening there's a fear of possible infiltrations from lebanon into israel what's the latest what can you tell us that's correct there's actually been an exchange of fire near the northern community of hanita which is a kibbutz very close to the israeli lebanese border there was a possible infiltration detected there when there was an explosion on the fence line israeli forces moved in to investigate if anybody had used the explosion as a means to cross the border and from there a firefight seems to have developed there are reports of shooting from the lebanese side of the border with israeli forces responding with with artillery and with tank fire there's also been israeli jets in the air over our heads since that incident started to develop in the last hour although we do not have any information with regards to airstrikes and just to remind our listeners that this is one of several security incidents that have taken place in the north of the country so far today with our rocket being fired from the gaza strip all the way into the north it was one of the most long-distance launches from the gaza strip targeting the israeli city of safed although it was intercepted by the the david air defense system and there are also reports of a security incident in the area of matula which is further to the northeast of the country where residents in some buildings some homes along the frontier have been advised to evacuate from their homes for fear of small arms sniper and rpg fire from across the border at the minute this is this is not an incident that is taking place it's a recommendation most likely based on intelligence a rub we can see quite a busy scene behind you and as you obviously mentioned that there is this fear of possible infiltrations but a lot of the time there does seem to be false reports of these infiltrations coming through on the northern front so how is the security establishment and the infrastructure setting up on the border there in fears of possible actual infiltrations not just from drones but from hezbollah terrorists as well that's correct for the last few days there's been a series of skirmishes at times there's been any tank fire from the lebanese side and israel responding with artillery and aircraft strikes now essentially this is because the big fear on the northern border is that hezbollah will join the fight will add its considerable firepower to chamas fighting on the southern front and so there's great fear with regards to that and so every time there's a small incident like this there is concern that this could be the the tipping point for the time being there's no confirmation that doesn't appear to be the case this could be yet another skirmish in this series of skirmishes but but there is a great deal of fear with regards to that which goes some of the way to explaining the the series of false alarms that have taken place in the last couple of days correspondent robert swift there on the northern border thank you for that update we'll be touching base with you a little later in the evening meanwhile and while the unrest continues inside and near israel's borders chamas is calling on its supporters for a day of rage around the world as israelis and jews abroad are urged to stay alert for violence security has been upped at israeli embassies worldwide as it has as well at jewish centers globally as across now lifestyle correspondent hamza salchot who is standing by for us in jerusalem hamza good evening there's been a quite a bit of violence coming out of the west bank the latest report that we were getting nine palestinians in the west bank killed during that day of rage what are you hearing and seeing through the west bank and into jerusalem as well with regards to khamas's call right but yeah so that report now is 11 palestinians killed in those demonstrations a strong show of support in places like ramallah nebless and janine in jerusalem here it was quite calm all day the israeli military imposing restrictions on several parts of the city so that people would not answer that call and come to the city center here to the old city and to the flashpoint at oxamos compound today there were only about 5 000 worshipers on a regular friday that is not during a religious time you could see upwards of 50 even 100 000 people at the mosque but today because of those restrictions really restricting people of what age could come women only from inside the old city men over the age of 50 or 55 the protests are actually spread throughout multiple parts of the middle east in places like yemen and iraq turkey pakistan lebanon the demonstrations continue in support of gaza but additionally on the jordanian side a lot of jordanians trying to march to the border to showcase their support for the palestinian cause but the jordanian army stopped them throwing tear gas at them and other riot dispersal methods remember hamas called for people to show their support in a day of rage in a day of anger on friday but this call happened very early on in the week they were really getting the messaging out quite early so that people could prepare themselves for the days to come and ham do you mentioned tens calm in jerusalem but what is the security apparatus like at least in the holy city at the moment a lot of reinforcements being sent to the northern and the southern borders what is it like in the capital well look an additional thousands of the border police officers were sent to help patrol the city and set up these blockades essentially that lead to the old city in several neighborhoods like wadil jos which is just a little bit of a walks away about 10 minutes so there is a heavy police presence here behind me you can see it's completely deserted because of those restrictions and blockades that the israeli military has sent but throughout the old city there are police and army officers all over the place really trying to ensure that no one is getting through no one is trying to protest that no one is trying to cause any sort of unrest in the city correspondent khamdas al-khut there in jerusalem will be touching brace with you a bit later as well and with me here in studio is nadav tamir the former diplomatic advisor for israeli president shimon paris good evening thank you so much for taking the time to be here with me this evening in studio news just in the former defense minister moshaya alone suggested during an interview to channel 12 that israeli should lower their expectations of what the idf is able to do in gaza most israelis at the moment are calling for the eradication of and and let's be clear the khamas terror movement in the gaza strip is the de facto rulers what exactly should israelis be lowering their expectations to according to the former to the former defense minister well every time we have another conflict with khamas even though this time of course is in it's totally different dimension it's the worst attack israel ever suffered but the facts remain that there's no military solution to khamas i mean we could take out many of their capabilities but khamas is a movement almost 30 percent of the palestinian society are supporters of khamas not necessarily supported of the terrorism but they're part of the movement of khamas so i think that all those mantras let's take take off khamas i i think he's definitely correct by saying that it's exaggerated so in in a likely scenario that israel does manage to deplete much of khamas's senior members but also they arsenal their facilities what should be left from a political point of view in the gaza strip because as you mentioned if we look at the situation albeit different circumstances with the united states and afghanistan they went in same situation with the idea of retaliation but they were there for 20 years assuming that they could fix the government issue on the ground and that obviously did not come to fruition are we going to be seeing a similar thing here is israel taking on that advice to know that its retaliatory actions have to be followed by something more permanent i hope so i'm not sure i think that what the biden administration was doing is embracing israel in an amazing way one of the most supportive messages ever came from an american president came from biden and also from secretary blinkin when they visited here but they also spoke about the need to act according to international law and if you act according to international law there's no way you could because you're going after so many civilians that are there in gaza and they and someone have to take care of them and that requires a strategy a political horizon which i don't think the current israeli government could do but we have to think beyond this government and they with american leadership with an international support we have to after this ends the military part we have to have an exit strategy that leads to a political arrangement stay with me because i do want to touch on on one of the angles that you brought up with regards to a humanitarian corridor and evidently the civilians inside gaza the israel defense forces has warned over one million gardens to relocate to the south of the strip this is the israeli military is continuing to pound terror targets however local garden sources have confirmed to israeli media that hamas is resuming their calls for civilians not to listen to idf propaganda and evacuate the area in some cases it has actually prevented citizens from doing so thus far almost 1800 Palestinians have been killed by the retaliatory airstrikes with thousands more wounded although these numbers released by the hamas health ministry do not distinguish between hamas terrorists and innocent civilians while we're going now to our correspondent mary mccauliffe who is standing by for us near the israel gaza border mary the us both nissan yaw blink and we also heard it coming out of the u.s. defense secretary as well discussing safe areas inside the gaza strip where is there for them to go that's exactly the problem batia there really is nowhere that is safe this is the problem now with over a million residents in the north being told to flee south while israeli airstrikes are still ringing out and pounding the area and also israeli tanks we've continued to see them here in the border area especially we've also heard these israeli tanks throughout the day firing into gaza firing into hamas targets in the area so the citizens were being asked to flee or being asked to do so while under fire and with the added difficulty of there's really nowhere to go in this extremely densely populated strip with egypt also imposing that blockade from the southern exit not allowing palestinians to leave from there really is a burgeoning humanitarian crisis and i can see that you are at the birsey lion hospital in ashkelon so just to remind our viewers that's about a 30 minute drive from the gaza border area to that southern coastal city that coastal city was under a heavy barrage of rockets earlier this afternoon what has it been like there on the ground in the last while that you've been there absolutely bad yes we've been here in the south since this morning in ashkelon particularly hamas says it fired over 150 rockets towards this area also towards ashtod earlier today we saw videos of massive interceptions taking place over the city driving into the city we saw a number of different smoke from fires that were caused by these rockets some in residential areas hitting cars luckily causing no injuries but also some that fell in open areas near the power plant and massive fires they're burning as these rockets continue to try and hit targets here for the past two hours or so i would say it's been relatively quiet just a few moments ago we did hear rocket sirens ring out in ufkan neem which is an area near the southern border in berseva really so a bit far from here but here in ashkelon things have quieted down a bit for now but residents are still bracing because they have been under these rocket barrages for a week now and we really don't see many people out in the streets if they are even still staying in the city and haven't already left to safer parts of the country correspondent mary mccall of there in the south of israel stay safe we'll be crossing to you a little later still with me here in studio is nadav tamir the former diplomatic advisor for israeli president shimon paris let's touch base on on what me on what mary was was pointing to there's been recommendations from the idf for a lot of these ghazan civilians to be moving down south towards egypt there's a big question here why is egypt not opening the borders for these ghazans in order to assist them or at least assist what they keep calling the humanitarian crisis that is likely to unfold with israel's striking of the strip why is egypt not involved in at least alleviating some of that pressure on the citizens egypt is concerned that this will spill over to their territories they have a lot of issues with the muslim brotherhood they don't want this to become their problem i think the american administration should work with egyptians to find a solution to this and also israel we have to understand that many of those ghazans are victims of hamas just like we israelis are victims of hamas and i can talk personally that i was today in a funeral and and many of my family were either brutally abducted or killed but we have to understand that the fact that we were hit so badly by really war criminal acts by hamas doesn't take from us the responsibility to be rational and humane in the way we respond to ghaza and i hope that first of all we will prioritize bringing the abductees back home that should be the priority because we can always hit hamas later and secondly whatever we do to eradicate the capabilities of hamas as i said we cannot take hamas completely but to eradicate their capabilities we have to do it in a way that will minimize the damage for the civilians in ghaza absolutely and just before we we bring in our next guest there is newly released footage that is coming out showing how the hamas terrorist open fire and people hiding in the portable toilets of the festival that was near riem again i'll remind our viewers this was the peace festival where around 260 people were butchered in an open field area they were there to celebrate peace just absolutely unbelievable when we have those images that have just been coming out we'll show them through to you but in the meantime let's move now to another personal testimony of some of those tragedies that are unfolding here in israel i'm joined by el hermati the grandson of varda hermati who was murdered by hamas in kibbutz riem near the israel ghaza border firstly thank you so very much for for joining us here on our breaking news editions of the i-24 news desk how are you and your family is the rest of you safe hi um thank you very much for having me uh me and the rest of my family are safe now i live in hoda shalom which is a little near the central of israel i have many family that lived in the kibbutz in kibbutz riem they're all in elat right now they had to evict the kibbutz they can't stay there right now and unfortunately we didn't even have a funeral yet for my grandma so the situation is pretty pretty bad you know i can only but begin to try and imagine what you and your family must be going through um can i ask you to talk a little bit about your grandmother and exactly what happened to her yes so it happened october 7th um i woke up in the morning at 6 30 to the first sirens um i was so confused it was um it never happened that we have sirens out in hoda shalom i was really worried because there was nothing that indicated this prior to october 7th and when i woke up in the morning i called my sisters and my family to see if everybody's safe because i was very worried about everyone i didn't know what was happening i was scared um and then i got a call from my sister she screamed at the phone i was so i was i can remember her screams until now she was screaming grandma was shot grandma was shot she's dead she's dead and i would i just woke up i was so confused it's been half an hour i we didn't know anything like what's happening what's going on um and i was just so scared i rushed to my sister's house she lives next to me and we were trying to process everything and trying to reach out to our family in the kibbutz and um we were texting our cousin we're asking him is this true what's happening are you safe he was texting us from the shelter no it's true she was shot dead she's in her bed boss found her boss is her partner he rushed to her the moment he heard that terrorists are in the kibbutz and he found her already dead in the bed my grandma was such a loving person and she would feed the neighborhood cat all the time and she usually doesn't listen to all the alarms and all the warnings she gets so what we think happened is that she forgot to lock her house and she just went into the shelter and then they broke into her house that's what we think happened but we don't really know if they broke in or they just the door wasn't locked but it's just awful because she was helpless she was an 81 year old woman she couldn't do anything and we were speaking to our cousins to see if they're safe at least they were hiding in their shelters they couldn't speak on the phone because they couldn't make any noise because they were running into houses they were breaking into houses they were trying to burn houses for people to come out one of my cousins he got hit by a rocket fragment in his hand and he had to go through surgery but he's safe now and it's just awful that this is the end of her story because she was such a loving person she had two kids seven grandchilds and she had one great granddaughter that was born less than three months ago and all she wanted in the rest of her years alive was to spend time with family and you know share her time with friends family cook for us be with us you know that's all they have left in that age like that's all they hold on to she she grew up in the kibbutz all of her life she loved israel so much she loved her kibbutz she would never leave it not even when the worst times with the rockets and with all the terror attacks from the sky but who would have thought that it would come into their own homes you know just the images that we're seeing on the screen show just such a warm grandmother who just has almost just unconditional love for her children and her grandchildren I understand your grandmother's partner boy as as you mentioned hit with her body for over 12 hours at what point did anyone any one official get hold of your family to update you what had happened to your grandmother so they were actually in the house while she was dead for 28 hours before they came and evict her because the kibbutz was under attack all day and until the IDF and the security forces came and rescued them it was not before like 11 p.m. and they couldn't even bring in you know an ambulance or like anybody to come evict her because there was so much terror going around not only kibbutz re'im but kibbutz berri which is right next to the kibbutz and the whole kibbutz is near the strip they were all going through their terrors and there was just not enough force to even come evict her when the IDF took back control so he he laid next to her with her in the shelter for 28 hours before they could even come help them. Al Haramadi the grandson of Arda Hamadi who was murdered by Hamas in kibbutz re'im near the Israel Gaza border Al our hearts and our thoughts are with you and your family and hopefully you are able to put your grandmother to rest sometimes soon. Thank you very much thank you for having me thank you for joining us and still in that area of southern Israel re'im is not only just the kibbutz but also just near that kibbutz an area where the party known as the massacre that happened 260 people were butchered at a peace party I'd like to remind you all the time that we are looking at disturbing images but what you're looking at right now on your screen is Hamas terrorists targeting the public toilets at this party not even bothering to open the doors but simply just shooting indiscriminately as they walk past we've also been given accounts that many people that were working at the bar area at this party were hiding in the refrigerators of which we were told that Hamas terrorists opened the refrigerators found them and shot them as well and still continuing the conversation in studio it's some of these testimonies it's it's at a loss for words and and as anchors that's a hard one for us because that's quite literally our job but it's so difficult because these are so raw and such human testimonies what would be the message to the Israeli public right now that even on seven days of war some still don't know what's happened to their family members whether they've been killed whether they've been taken into Gaza or at this point could many of them still possibly be in hiding well I don't have any comforting words as I said I was in a funeral today I also have family in the aim I lost family members in the area and I'm participating in a headquarters of you know civilians who are trying to help the families of the abductees and there's a lot of work many people are trying to help but for the families it's very hard to to bring comfort and I know that the blood is boiling and people are in anxiety it's the worst we ever had I mean the Yom Kippur war was also a surprise attack and very devastating but it was all soldiers and people are more prepared when soldiers are being killed but not civilians who were taken from their beds so this is indeed very devastating and not only you know anchors find if I find it hard to find the words but also diplomats like me it's very devastating we are getting word out at the moment that the IDF has said that there will be almost a safe passage or corridor for garrisons to be able to flee up until 8 p.m. local time that the IDF will not target that area until 8 p.m. local time yesterday I was actually stationed in the south at the Barsi Lai hospital in Ashkelon where Mary McAuliffe is now and and there was something that really stayed with me and I'm wondering if for the last minute of the broadcast if you'll touch on it one of the reservists was there looking after his mother or father I believe was in hospital so he is on standby but not being called up and he said to me there's a terrible sense of guilt with a lot of reservists that can't be brought up and I said I know I agree I didn't serve in the army and I have that sense of guilt he says no we shouldn't have that guilt because you are serving the country by broadcasting these images to the world the people that are donating food are serving the country by helping our brothers and sisters is that the takeaway here that humanity more so than terrorism just rises above it all yeah the solidarity is unbelievable you know we almost forgot that few weeks ago more than half of the country were demonstrating protesting and they were called anarchists by the government and now everybody are in this together trying to help the victims trying to help the soldiers putting the politics aside and the same mechanisms that we're organizing the demonstrations are now organizing the humanitarian aid which is a an amazing show that israel is much more than its government and politics thanks for watching over 1300 casualties and over 3000 injuries and the toll keeps climbing we bring you the testimonies from the front line from those who managed to survive in the most graphic brutal images so the whole world can see what hamas did follow us as israel battles a terror threat emanating from the south and the north join i24 news for the real story of what's going on in 2013 i attended two births the one of my son and the one of i24 news that i joined at the very beginning of the adventure so of course in 10 years a lot of things happened in israel and at least enormously but if i had to remember only one memorable memory of my journalist career well it would be this exclusive interview that i managed to hook up with nasser burrita chief of the marocan diplomacy the same day where israel and maroc signed the agreements the serbo is a thank you first of all to welcome and to have chosen i24 news we are in december 2020 as usual donald printh announces the deal on the networks and a few weeks later a plane will take off from the Tel Aviv to rabah on its side of the beautiful world jarred kushner aviver kovic and the advice to the national security israeli mayor ben shabbat here i swear to enter the redaction with the interview of the minister kasslan tien i activate my networks and there in banko the minister gives his answer and then here are the hours of the lines we are at the hotel arab one hour only before taking off for tel aviv and the minister no longer gives any sign of life so i start to despair obviously and then suddenly who i see get into the hotel well the minister in person gives me signs of the head to ask me to follow him and in all of the contracts he will take the steering wheel of his vehicle and drive us to his office at the ministry of foreign affairs marocan where a long interview will take place for more than a quarter of an hour from the marocan mountain to inspire the efforts of maroc and it is during this interview that the minister will reveal to me that in 2018, two years before the agreements of abram, he met billiam in itania where it was in the march of the general assembly of the nations, it is a huge pride to have been able to interview the minister on the same day of the agreements of abram being in the right place at the right time, that's also it, the force of itanifornia. Welcome to our rolling and breaking news coverage here on i24 news it's day seven of war here in israel over the past week the death toll has risen more than 1,300 people were murdered by hamas with close to 3,300 wounded by their combined attacks rocket alert sirens continue to blare throughout communities in the south with some homes taking direct hits but thankfully no casualties in recent hours the garrison terror group has expanded their reach by launching rockets at both central and even northern israel as well meanwhile the israel defense forces have warned over 1 million garrisons to relocate to the south of the strip this is the israeli military is continuing to pound terror targets local garrison sources have confirmed to israeli media that hamas is resuming their calls for civilians not to listen to idea of propaganda and evacuate the area in some cases they have actually prevented citizens from doing so thus far almost 1800 palestinians have been killed by the retaliatory airstrikes with thousands more wounded although these numbers released by the hamas health ministry do not distinguish between hamas terrorists and innocent civilians let's cross now live to our correspondent mary macauliffe who is standing by it for us in the south of israel mary reports coming out now that the idf has sent over a warning for garrison citizens that they will need to leave the northern area specifically by 8 p.m local time they will not strike the area this this route that they will be taking to get out if need be before 8 p.m how likely is it that many of them are going to be able to leave that's exactly the big question right now batia and truly nobody really knows we've heard these warnings and there's been a lot of confusion and a lot of some panic and worry inside gaza since first this morning the un saying israel had warned all northern gaza residents to evacuate saying this needed to be done within 24 hours we then officially heard from idf spokesperson from the israeli forces saying that they understand that this is a large amount of people over 1 million people who live in the north section to get also to the south incredibly densely populated populated area all while under israeli's airstrikes they understand they understand that this is a very difficult defeat so this is something that they are trying to accomplish and the idf also saying that maybe it couldn't happen within coming days and we're also hearing reports of strikes on some of those who have been fleeing south these are unconformer parts coming out of gaza but so a lot of gaza residents are very worried now about the situation trying to decide whether or not to leave their homes as hamas tells them not to leave their homes and not to listen to israeli propaganda and try and go further south so this is the thing we're seeing now and then again the idf's person just now coming out in arabic releasing this message saying this specific route a very specific route going straight down through central gaza in the northern part down to the south we're going to run now dare sirens alert so we're going to run through the shelter this is the first alert that we've had in ashkelon i want to say for about four hours now it's been relatively quiet in this area but we have seen sporadic rockets islands going off in southern areas near closer to the border than ashkelon but earlier in ashkelon we saw hamas said over 150 rockets were fired towards this city mary i know from being in ashkelon myself that it's about 30 seconds when those rocket alerts go off for you to leave where the camera is currently standing along with the team with you to run in the shelter there the hospital being a fortification in and of itself we're also hearing the idf is confirming for the first time a sort of local infiltrate well not really infiltrations but at least into the gaza strip in order to try and locate some of those kidnapped and to properly cleanse the area of hamas terrorists what are you hearing coming out of the south with regards to that and also as you mentioned this is the first time that we have heard sirens on ashkelon how busy has the hospital been in terms of bringing the wounded and possibly those that have been found kidnapped or at least hiding to treatment that's right batia so this week obviously ashkelon has seen a lot of injured patients come in it is one of the main hospitals here in the southern region and has been incredibly busy with hospital staff working overtime to try and tend to all of the wounded civilians who have come in as well as also soldiers who are also being treated here in this area today it is relatively quiet thankfully despite those over 150 rockets that were fired earlier today towards this area there were no reports of injuries i talked to one paramedic who said they brought in an elderly woman over 80 years old but she was only treated for in light situation she came in essentially with panic and anxiety attacks but she was brought in from her house to this area and they said that's the only injury that they've treated today so luckily in recent days it has been much better that has been in recent days today excuse me and while perhaps not physical injuries the the untold toll of the psychological and trauma incidents are just going to be coming out for months to come i'll correspond to mary mccall of there in the south thank you for that update stay safe and while the unrest continues inside and near israel's borders khamas is calling on its supporters for a day of rage around the world as israelis and jews abroad are urged to stay alert for violence security has been upped at israeli embassies worldwide as it has as well at jewish centers globally we're going now to our correspondent khamdes salchot who is standing by for us in jerusalem uh khamda violence has seen uh at least a bit of it outside of israel's borders being an incident in both beijing in china and also in france what are we seeing coming out of the west bank and possibly jerusalem with regards to khamas's call for a day of rage well batia 11 palestinians killed today in several demonstrations throughout the west bank palestinians listening to that call from hamas flooding the streets in support and solidarity for the civilians inside of the gaza strip now there were demonstrations from ramallah to nebless and janine however here in jerusalem there were none because of the restrictions imposed by the israeli military there were blockades that were set up all throughout the city so that people could not reach this part here behind me damascus gate even us as media we've all been removed from the steps of the gate because they want to keep it completely clear there's a heavy police presence and patrol here as the israeli military is still afraid that people will want to come here and demonstrate specifically as flat as uh at flashpoint sites like the alexa mosque the israeli security apparatus on high alert also for people who are perhaps uh posting on social media in support of hamas charging them and arresting them with incitement of violence and terror so the israeli security system on high alert in jerusalem but really trying to prevent everything they can in terms of riots and demonstrations here however earlier in the day in several palestinian neighborhoods that really bordered the old city the israeli military setting up blockades there a heavy force there people performing friday prayers there and then clashes breaking out among the palestinians and the israeli military trying to clear the area so for now in jerusalem it's a tense calm but look that we're in an ever-changing and dynamic situation as the war treads on so we really could see a change here in jerusalem even though for now it is calm as you're mentioning that tense calm but the situation likely to change at a moment what can you tell us in terms of the security presence at the moment in and around the old city and also in the capital we know that reinforcements in 300 000 reserves are being called up to four to five both in northern and the southern borders and no doubt some sending to the volatile west bank but what's happening in jerusalem in terms of the security presence there is a heavy security presence in jerusalem there is there always is but specifically when this war started the people that have been deployed to the city to patrol it are in masses inside of the old city in those narrow streets there are border police officers everywhere in every entrance to the old city there are several checkpoints that people need to pass through in order to get inside the only people they're really letting inside are people who live inside of the old city themselves so these really military really really um having a heavy presence here and having a heavy footprint here in order to try and prevent anyone from gathering and perhaps that erupting into clashes later on correspondent hamsa selkut there in jerusalem thank you very much for that update now the night was supposed to be a getaway thousands of youngsters gathered at a vast field in southern israel near the gaza border to dance and celebrate life and peace 24 hours later around 260 bodies were being recovered from the area now being called a mask rave the likes not seen since the holocaust hamas terror is indiscriminately massacred thousands and took others kidnapped this footage is very graphic a warning at what you are about to watch but they also shot at public restrooms making sure there were no survivors take a look i've been a hard one for local journalists and i'm sure foreign journalists as well to decide what gruesome images to show but i24news has decided to show these next images with permission from the guest who sent them to us he's also an eyewitness and a surviving victim the video in question is graphic and hard for many to watch it shows one of his friends in captivity by hamas the terror group filming they're kidnapping there are also photos of him personally hiding in the bushes of the nature reserve he luckily escaped survived and is here with us to share his story dean tesla joins us right here in studio dean thank you so very much for coming in to speak to us here at i24news i cannot even begin to imagine the ordeal that you have been through but if i may can you talk to us a little bit about what you went through at this nature party yeah so it's everything went well due to the 6 30 a.m and in the morning and when the rockets started to landing on our air and my job was to driving on the atv and to secure and lead the crowd to the cars since there was no shelter in the area while some of the crowd got in the cars and started driving they got attacked by terrorists and at that time and i saw a woman their whole head was bleeding and that time i realized that something happened something big and not just rockets and i have a radio on me and they told me that i need to give her on the ambulance and that's what i did and after 40 minutes we saw the terrorist with their cars coming to our way and at that point my friend told me you need to escape and to go where there was the festival and you run and the bullets you see right and left and you see people go down and you just run and that time i make a lot of phone calls to my friends that i know they're in the army and asking for help send location for my girlfriend my mom and my family my friends and you don't know what to do at that time you're only scared to to die and after a few minutes we understand that they're coming from another way and you need to escape you understand you need to escape and you run to the woods me and group from 10 people i think and you run from hideout to hideout for two and half hours you run in the woods and the last time that we're running we saw the terrorist it's maybe 50 60 meters between us and shooting in us and in that time we're separated and i've been alone i run and i saw a bush cactus i run into it with all the pain i just jump in and that time you see you see that it's a war and you all you don't have what to do and you call everyone in locations and in 2 in 2 24 a p.m i realized that the body is going to to end on the phone and my friends told me the help is coming for you and after 40 minutes i think 40 maybe 50 minutes i'm realized that three terrorists coming to me to the bush and i don't know how it's happened but they don't see me and that time i remember that you realize that you're going to die and you accept the death and and i don't know how but they don't see me and after one hour i think maybe it's 4 p.m something like that i'm realized that i start to illusion because i don't drink water from 6 a.m and i remember that bush behind me was on fire and i think that the terrorists want to burn me alive and you don't know what to do at that time and i remember that i close my eyes speak with the god and that time i realized that going to burn me and after one hour the hour was almost 6 30 6 40 p.m i'm still in the bush waiting for the help and no one is coming and and that time i realized it's going to be to die from no water or hypothermia and or i need to do something and search for help and that time i start to wave to the helicopter i think half hour something like that and no one see me while still in the bush still in the bush i start to wave i believe we do have images of that ordeal of you hiding while you're speaking sorry continue and at that time you think with yourself you want to do it all unite or you want to do something and move and i remember that i go out from the bush and i look in left and right and i hear a lot of war zone like a lot of rockets and weapon and shooting and you understand that you don't have a word to run i'm heard right right and where it was and i pray and i just make a decision to run and i run left and i run and i remember that i see a lot of bodies and i just run 20 minutes i think and at that moment you you think that you run hours and after 20 minutes and god helped me again and i saw a car with a with the lights and at that time you don't know if the terrorist or the army are you being in nine hours in the bush you don't know what is going on and i make a decision to yell and i yell help me i need the i need help and thank god it was the two soldiers and give me a lot of water and get me out from the from the woods and i charge my phone a little bit and then my brother of my friend bar called me asked me if i know where's bar and i told him that i don't know i only get out from the woods right now and he sent me the video that you did you see so the videos are the first time that you yourself understood that some of your friends had been taken captive by kamas yeah it was eight p.m. only the one minute that you are in the safe zone and you see the video and you start to cry and panic and you don't realize where you've been and and i start to cry and till now i'm every day and cry and pray for him and his family also have you heard anything from the government or the authorities about any of your friends that have been taken the government speak with his family every day so soldiers come to his house speaking with his mom but no one want no one know what happened to him till now six days and we're only one to tell us what is going on live not alive the family is broken his mother broken all the brothers we're just waiting for him Dean you were in the bushes for hours on end at times you mentioned even alone dehydrated in confusion scared the video that that was filmed you can hear almost the sense of complete panic when you were listening to what was going on around you left and right and not sure whether to come out were you listening to arabic being spoken with were some of these terrorists perhaps speaking Hebrew to try and lure people out of the bushes what was going on around you and when i was in the bush you heard a lot a lot of terrorists yelling alawakbar and a lot of arabic people the terrorist you hear them maybe 10 meters when i was all the time and you hear a lot of bullets and shooting and rockets if it's rpg i don't know what and of course i panic but only i want to be quiet that no one will see me that's it Dean tesla um i wish i could unplug myself and come and give you a hug i just thank you so much for being here and for sharing your testimony so that we can broadcast it to the world so that the world knows what happened at that nova nature party and just we are thinking and praying and hoping that your friends their location is found and that they can come home safely thank you very much thank you for being here i want to cross now live to our correspondent robert swift who's standing by for us near the israel lebanon border rabbit we do hear of possible skirmishes along the border between israel and hezbollah what's the latest what can you tell us on the ground that's correct just over an hour ago there was a skirmish just to the north of the israeli kibbutz of hanita um it's understood that the idf believed that an infiltration attempt may be taking place when a explosive was detonated on the border fence and some sort of firefight developed out of that it's understood that shots were fired from the lebanese side of the border and that israel responded with artillery and tank fire now we're getting reports of uh possible al-jazeera journalists have been wounded with three wounded and one possibly killed um it's unclear who was behind the explosion which struck them um there is a social media footage of this going around um they were on in the the south lebanese side of the border um but as i say that remains unclear and still developing now the security itself around the kibbutz of hanita the israeli military has said that that has come to a close they have told residents of that community that they can go back to their business as much as usual as they can do in these current circumstances but the the friction and the tensions continued not just in that location uh we're a bit to the east of that location and uh we are in the vicinity of where our rocket strike landed um the hill to the left of me uh there's uh essentially the side of the hill is on fire and we believe that's where the rocket or parts of the rocket's possibly landed our correspondent robert swift there in the north of the country thank you and stay safe here with me in studio is benjamin antony the co-founder and CEO of the maryam institutes um i want to switch angles now from the gut wrenching testimonies to the security angle when benjamin sannyale first spoke after the massacre after hearing what was going on in terms of the situation of hamas's onslaughts in the south the comment that israelis probably needed to hear was that we are going to wipe hamas out and instead it was the same comment that many of us are used to of will deal them a decisive blow and since then we've had many ministers changing their their rhetoric their narratives saying we are going to wipe hamas off the face of the earth there will be no more hamas in Gaza but we are seeing sort of from some uh moshia alone the former defense minister coming out and saying well israelis may need to lower their expectations where do we draw the line here between not having hamas anymore on our borders versus reality well i don't think that we're hearing conflicting messages from the prime minister and various ministers i think what we're actually hearing is perhaps escalating messages so benjamin antonyahu as you said did begin by saying that we're going to deal a very heavy blow one that will not be forgotten to hamas and it will change the shape and the contours of the area the region the middle east and so forth but today you heard defense minister you have gallant standing next to his american counterpart speaking very definitively about his resolve to wipe out and to destroy hamas now i would suggest that we focus upon those who are in situ rather than individuals as expert as they may be such as moshia bogie alone former defense minister as you said what they have to say from the outside i think the time will tell i think that we will see whether or not a ground incursion is indeed brought about many expect that to be the case but i can tell you having just been down in the southern part of the country having been among the troops just earlier this afternoon there is no question but that the israeli people who are our soldiers and our citizens they want to see the utter distraction of hamas whether that will come about or not we'll wait and see right and again this isn't from from a point of an offensive or an attack on hamas or even on the palestinian people for that matter it's a matter of retaliation we're talking about israel being hit first and then obviously retaliating to that hit and you mentioned that there is the possibility of a ground incursion obviously that is being reported widespread across the board not just here in israel but infantry troops and tanks did enter gaza today being friday for what they calling localized raids to clear the area of terrorists explain this just from a security point of view because to many watching the terrorists were in israeli territory crossing through the border fence breaking it down coming into kibbutz and moshave all the communities in the south why would then the idf be clearing the terrorists from the area with inside the gaza strip so first of all a little bit of context when you speak about retaliation a country cannot survive in this region if it falls prey to a horrific attack such as the one that we all bore witness to this past saturday morning unless it retaliates unless it actually dare i speak the word brings vengeance to those who wrought such horrors upon our people we need to retaliate it needs to be strong it needs to be decisive and as i say the extent of that retaliation remains to be seen we've got the war cabinet that's now been brought about we'll see what they decide i'm a little bit skeptical though i am a minority voice on this particular point i don't know if prime minister netanyahu and benny gantz and gadi eisencott who have all worked together with regard to the gaza front several times in the past and have always chosen a cautious approach to that front i'm skeptical as to whether or not we'll see them change tactics change strategy and go with defense minister gallant what's very interesting about this of course is that gallant is a bit of an unknown quantity here gallant is the current defense minister we have not seen him work with prime minister netanyahu in this capacity he may be able to pound his fist on the table and say the destruction of hamas is what's needed and what we are going to pursue now with regard to our movement there into the gaza strip i think that it makes all the sense in the world that we clear the area as best we can of anybody and everybody that's why you're seeing the air force flying sorties over the strip they are trying to soften the ground for the ground troops to move in in the case that that happens of course in order to reduce to its lowest number the number of casualties and soldiers that we receive back in an injured or worse state that has to be be undertaken it is being undertaken in a very professional manner and i hope that we are going to take the gloves off and hit them with a clenched rolled ball that fist ready to smash our enemy because at the end of the day this is an existential threat and it's been made very clear it's either us or them and i thank you for saying that because for many many years and you will have heard this as well so-called experts have said that the gaza strip does not constitute a strategic threat it's a low-level threat they were wrong i've believed that they were wrong and spoken about the fact that they were wrong they misunderstood the situation there we entered into as a people as a government our upper security establishment as well we entered into a mindset of complacency of failing to understand the intentions of our enemies and now unfortunately too many of our citizens have paid the price and too many of our citizens and soldiers are being held hostages and we must must bring back those hostages benjamin antony the co-found and CEO of the miriam institute thank you so much for being here in studio on our rolling and breaking news coverage thank you for having me that brings us to an end of this broadcast but stay tuned at the top of the hour we'll have more updates for you on day seven of the war here in israel is officially in a state of war this is a very active scene and we need to get in the car as we're talking within a hundred soldiers and civilians have been kidnapped we just don't know anything entire families including babies and children and elderly were butchered in their beds awaken the giant and we are ready and we are strong everyone is showing up this is the unity gaza we will hit the khamas we will destroy but we have our value and our culture part of the team that opened this place some 10 years ago it was dramatic to come in here post construction blow the sawdust off the table and get to work building the first broadcast for the channel even with all the experiences of that first year and being here 10 years later everything we've done since nothing compares to the tension-filled news period of that summer of 2014 all leading up to the ground invasion of gaza day seven israel defense force operation protective edge i was in the studio under rocket sirens rocket attacks where there'd be one person left the control room me sitting there seeing the newsroom clearing out the corner of my eye and continuing to talk to the camera about the moment we are in real confronts khamas in and around the gaza strip we're joining me now on set i've been exposed to the conflict for many years but something about that summer was just so much more unsettling than anything ever before maybe something inside me knew that there was more coming the big night came the night at the idf ground invasion of gaza we were here till well after two in the morning covering that exhausted and i went home i think it was by seven a.m already the idf was calling me one of the mobile reserves here sending them off to the war we got those phone calls and by friday night we were already told power officers we'd be inside gaza in 48 hours and you're going from one minute you're in your job you're in your normal life the next minute you're being sent off to war a collective experience that somebody had that summer it's a wholly unique experience for me covering the war telling the story to the international audience to covering those soldiers to the next day being one of those soldiers out there on the front lines i mean truly it's given me perspective that i've carried with me here ever since on covering this conflict Welcome to our ruling and breaking news coverage here on i24 news it's day seven of war here in israel and for the past week the death toll has risen more than 1,300 people were murdered by Hamas with close to 3,300 wounded by their combined attacks rocket alert sirens continue to blare throughout communities in the south with some homes taking direct hits but thankfully no casualties in recent hours the gaza and terror group has expanded their reach by launching rockets at both central and even northern israel as well meanwhile the israel defense forces have warned over 1 million gaza to relocate to the south of the strip this is the israeli military is continuing to pound terror targets local gaza sources have confirmed to israeli media that hamas is resuming their calls for civilians not to listen to idea of propaganda and evacuate the area in some cases they have actually prevented citizens from doing so thus far almost 1,800 palestinians have been killed by the retaliatory airstrikes with thousands more wounded although these numbers released by the hamas health ministry do not distinguish between hamas terrorists and innocent civilians let's cross now live to our correspondent mary macaulif who is standing by it for us in the south of israel mary reports coming out now that the idf has sent over a warning for gaza citizens that they will need to leave the northern area specifically by 8 p.m local time they will not strike the area this this route that they will be taking to get out if need be before 8 p.m how likely is it that many of them are going to be able to leave that's exactly the big question right now batia and truly nobody really knows we've heard these warnings and there's been a lot of confusion and a lot of some panic and worry inside gaza since first this morning the un saying israel had warned all northern gaza residents to evacuate saying this need to be done within 24 hours we then officially heard from idf spokesperson from the israeli forces saying that they understand that this is a large amount of people over 1 million people who live in the north section to get also to the south incredibly densely populated populated area all while under israeli airstrikes they understand they understand that this is a very difficult feat so this is something that they are trying to accomplish and the idf also saying that maybe couldn't happen within coming days and we're also hearing reports of strikes on some of those who have been fleeing south these are unconform reports coming out of gaza but so a lot of gaza residents are very worried now about the situation trying to decide whether or not to leave their homes as hamas tells them not to leave their homes and not to listen to israeli propaganda and try and go further south so this is the thing we're seeing now and then again the idf person just now coming out in arabic releasing this message saying this specific route a very specific route going straight down through central gaza in the northern part down to the south we're going to run out there sirens alert so we're going to run to the shelter this is the first alert that we've had in ashkelon i want to say for about four hours now it's been relatively quiet in this area but we have seen sporadic rocket sirens going off in southern areas near closer to the border than ashkelon but earlier in ashkelon we saw hamas said over 150 rockets were fired towards this city mary i know from being in ashkelon myself that it's about 30 seconds when those rocket alerts go off for you to leave where the camera is currently standing along with the team with you to run into shelter there the hospital being a fortification in and of itself we're also hearing the idf is confirming for the first time sort of local infiltrate well not really infiltrations but at least into the gaza strip in order to try and locate some of those kidnapped and to properly cleanse the area of hamas terrorists what are you hearing coming out of the south with regards to that and also as you mentioned this is the first time that we have heard sirens on ashkelon how busy has the hospital been in terms of bringing the wounded and possibly those that have been found kidnapped or at least hiding to treatment that's right batia so this week obviously ashkelon has seen a lot of injured patients come in it is one of the main hospitals here in the southern region and has been incredibly busy with hospital staff working overtime to try and tend to all of the wounded civilians who have come in as well as also soldiers who are also being treated here in this area today it is relatively quiet thankfully despite those over 150 rockets that were fired earlier today towards this area there were no reports of injuries i talked to one paramedic who said they brought in an elderly woman over 80 years old but she was only treated for in light situation she came in essentially with panic and anxiety attacks but she was brought in from her house to this area and they said that's the only injury that they've treated today so luckily in recent days it has been much better that has been in recent days today excuse me and while perhaps not physical injuries the the untold toll of the psychological and trauma incidents are just going to be coming out for months to come our correspondent mary mccullough there in the south thank you for that update stay safe and while the unrest continues inside and near israel's borders hamas is calling on its supporters for a day of rage around the world as israelis and jews abroad are urged to stay alert for violence security has been upped at israeli embassies worldwide as it has as well at jewish centers globally we're going now to our correspondent hamza salchow to a standing by for us in jerusalem hamda violence has seen uh at least a bit of it outside of israel's borders being an incident in both beijing in china and also in france what do we see in coming out of the west bank and possibly jerusalem with regards to hamas's call for a day of rage obat 11 palestinians killed today in several demonstrations throughout the west bank palestinians listening to that call from hamas flooding the streets in support and solidarity for the civilians inside of the gaza strip now there were demonstrations from ramallah to nebless and janine however here in jerusalem there were none because of the restrictions imposed by the israeli military there were blockades that were set up all throughout the city so that people could not reach this part here behind me damasca's gate even us as media we've all been removed from the steps of the gate because they want to keep it completely clear there's a heavy police presence and patrol here as the israeli military is still afraid that people will want to come here and demonstrate specifically as flat as uh at flashpoint sites like the alexa mosque the israeli security apparatus on high alert also for people who are perhaps uh posting on social media in support of hamas charging them and arresting them with incitement of violence and terror so the israeli security system on high alert in jerusalem but really trying to prevent everything they can in terms of riots and demonstrations here however earlier in the day in several palestinian neighborhoods that really bordered the old city the israeli military setting up blockades there uh a heavy force there people performing friday prayers there and then clashes breaking out among the palestinians and the israeli military trying to clear the area so for now in jerusalem it's a tense calm but look that we're in an ever-changing and dynamic situation as the war treads on so we really could see a change here in jerusalem even though for now it is calm as you're mentioning that tense calm but the situation likely to change at a moment what can you tell us in terms of the security presence at the moment in and around the old city and also in the capital we know that reinforcements in 300 000 reserves are being called up to four to five both in northern and the southern borders and no doubt some sending to the volatile west bank but what's happening in jerusalem in terms of the security presence there is a heavy security presence in jerusalem there is there always is but specifically when this war started the people that have been deployed to the city to patrol it are in masses inside of the old city in those narrow streets there are border police officers everywhere in every entrance to the old city there are several checkpoints that people need to pass through in order to get inside the only people they're really letting inside are people who live inside of the old city themselves so the is really military really really having a heavy presence here and having a heavy footprint here in order to try and prevent anyone from gathering and perhaps that erupting into clashes later on Correspondent Hamza Selkut there in Jerusalem thank you very much for that update now the night was supposed to be a getaway thousands of youngsters gathered at a vast field in southern israel near the Gaza border to dance and celebrate life and peace 24 hours later around 260 bodies were being recovered from the area now being called a mass grave the likes not seen since the holocaust Hamas terrorists indiscriminately massacred thousands and took others kidnapped this footage is very graphic a warning at what you are about to watch but they also shot at public restrooms making sure they were no survivors take a look it's been a hard one for local journalists and i'm sure foreign journalists as well to decide what gruesome images to show but i24 news has decided to show these next images with permission from the guest who sent them to us he's also an eyewitness and a surviving victim the video in question is graphic and hard for many to watch it shows one of his friends in captivity by Hamas the terror group filming they're kidnapping there are also photos of him personally hiding in the bushes of the nature reserve he luckily escaped survived and is here with us to share his story dean tesla joins us right here in studio dean thank you so very much for coming in to speak to us here at i24 news i cannot even begin to imagine the ordeal that you have been through but if i may can you talk to us a little bit about what you went through at this nature party yeah so it's everything went well due to the 6 30 a.m. and in the morning and when the rockets started to landing on our air and my job was to driving on the atv and to secure and lead the crowd to the cars since there was no shelter in the area why some of the crowd got in the cars and started driving they got attacked by terrorists and at that time and i saw a woman their whole head was bleeding and that time i realized that something happened something big and not just rockets and i have a radio on me and they told me that i need to give her on the ambulance and that's what i did and after 40 minutes we saw the terrorist with their cars coming to our way and at that point my friend told me you need to escape and to go where there was the festival and you run and the bullets you see right and left and you see people go down and you just run and that time i make a lot of phone calls to my friends that i know they're in the army and asking for help send location for my girlfriend my mom and my family my friends and you don't know what to do at that time you only scared to die and after a few minutes we understand that they're coming from another way and you need to escape you understand you need to escape and you run to the woods me and group from 10 people i think and you run from hideout to hideout for two and half hours you run in the woods and the last time that we're running we saw the terrorist it's maybe 50 60 meters between us and shooting at us and in that time we're separated and i've been alone i run and i saw a bush cactus i run into it with all the pain i just jump in and that time you see you see that it's a war and you all you don't have what to do and you call everyone in a locations and in 2 in 2 24 a p.m i realized that the body is going to to end on the phone and my friends told me the help is coming for you and after 40 minutes i think 40 maybe 50 minutes i'm realized that three terrorists coming to me to the bush and i don't know how it's happened but they don't see me and that time i remember that you realize that you're going to die and you accept the death and and i don't know how but they don't see me and after one hour i think maybe it's four p.m something like that i'm realized that i start to illusion because i don't drink water from six a.m and i remember that bush behind me was on fire and i think that the terrorists want to burn me alive and you don't know what to do at that time and i remember that i close my eyes speak with the god and that time i realized that it's going to burn me and after one hour the hour was almost 6 30 6 40 p.m i'm still in the bush waiting for the help and no one is coming and and that i'm realized i it's going to be to die from no water or hypothermia and or i need to do something and search for help and that time i start to wave to the helicopter i think half hour something like that and no one see me while still in the bush still in the bush i start to wave i believe we do have images of that ordeal of you hiding while you're speaking sorry continue and and that time you think with yourself you want to do it all night or you want to do something and move and i remember that i go out from the bush and i look in left and right and i hear a lot of war zone like a lot of rockets and weapons and shooting and you understand that you don't have a word to run i'm heard right right and where it was and i pray and i just make a decision to run and i run left and i run and i remember that i see a lot of bodies and i just run 20 minutes i think and at that moment you you think that you run hours and after 20 minutes and god helped me again and i saw a car with the lights and at that time you don't know if the terrorist or the army are you being in nine hours in the bush you don't know what is going on and i make a decision to yell and i yell help me i need i need help and thank god it was two soldiers and give me a lot of water and get me out from the from the woods and i charge my phone a little bit and then my brother of my friend bar called me asked me if i know where it's bar and i told him that i i don't know i only get out from the woods right now and he sent me the video that you did you see so the videos are the first time that you yourself understood that some of your friends had been taken captive by Hamas yeah it was eight p.m. only the one minute that you are in the safe zone and you see the video and you start to cry and panic and you don't realize where you've been and i start to cry and till now i'm every day and cry and pray for him and his family also have you heard anything from the government or the authorities about any of your friends that have been taken the government speak with his family every day so soldiers come to his house speaking with his mom but no one want no one know what happened to him till now six days and we're only one to tell us what is going on live not alive the family is broken his mother broken all the brothers we're just waiting for him dean you were in the bushes for hours on end at times you mentioned even alone dehydrated in confusion scared the video that that was filmed you you can hear almost the sense of complete panic when you were listening to what was going on around you left and right and not sure whether to come out were you listening to arabic being spoken were some of these terrorists perhaps speaking Hebrew to try and lure people out of the bushes what was going on around you and when i was in the bush you heard a lot a lot of terrorists yelling ala waghbar and a lot of arabic people the terrorists you hear them maybe 10 meters when i was all the time and you hear a lot of bullets and shooting and rockets if it's rpg i don't know what and of course i panic but only i want to be quiet that no one will see me that's it dean tesla um i wish i could unplug myself and come and give you a hug i just thank you so much for being here and for sharing your testimony so that we can broadcast it to the world so that the world knows what happened at that nova nature party and just we are thinking and praying and hoping that your friends their location is found and that they can come home safely thank you very much thank you for being here i want to cross now live to our correspondent robert swift who's standing by for us near the israel-lebanon border robert we do hear of possible skirmishes along the border between israel and hezbollah what's the latest what can you tell us on the ground that's correct just over an hour ago there was a skirmish just to the north of the israeli kibbutz of hanita it's understood that the idf believed that an infiltration attempt may be taking place when explosive was detonated on the border fence and some sort of firefight developed out of that it's understood that shots were fired from the lebanese side of the border and the israel responded with artillery and tank fire now we're getting reports of a possible al jazeera journalists have been wounded with three wounded and one possibly killed and it's unclear who was behind the explosion which struck them there's a social media footage of this going around they were on in the the south lebanese side of the border but as i say that remains unclear and still developing now the security itself around the kibbutz of hanita the israeli military has said that that has come to a close they have told residents of that community that they can go back to their business as much as usual as they can do in these current circumstances but the the friction and the tensions continue not just in that location we're a bit to the east of that location and we are in the vicinity of where a rocket strike landed the hill to the left of me there's a essentially the side of the hill is on fire and we believe that's where the rocket or parts of the rocket's possibly landed i'll correspond on robert swift there in the north of the country thank you and stay safe here with me in studio is benjamin antony the co-founder and CEO of the mariam institutes um i want to switch angles now from the gut wrenching testimonies to the security angle when benjamin is on y'all first spoke after the massacre after hearing what was going on in terms of the situation of hamas's onslaughts in the south the comment that israelis probably needed to hear was that we are going to wipe hamas out and instead it was the same comment that many of us are used to of will deal them a decisive blow and since then we've had many ministers changing their their rhetoric their narrative saying we are going to wipe hamas off the face of the earth there will be no more hamas in Gaza but we are seeing sort of from some uh moshia alone the former defense minister coming out and saying well israelis may need to lower their expectations where do we draw the line here between not having hamas anymore on our borders versus reality well i don't think that we're hearing conflicting messages from the prime minister and various ministers i think what we're actually hearing is perhaps escalating messages so benjamin antonyahu as you said did begin by saying that we're going to deal a very heavy blow one that will not be forgotten to hamas and that will change the shape and the contours of the area the region the middle east and so forth but today you heard defense minister you have gallant standing next to his american counterpart speaking very definitively about his resolve to wipe out and to destroy hamas now i would suggest that we focus upon those who are in situ rather than individuals as expert as they may be such as moshia bogie alone former defense minister as you said what they have to say from the outside i think the time will tell i think that we will see whether or not a ground incursion is indeed brought about many expect that to be the case but i can tell you having just been down in the southern part of the country having been among the troops just earlier this afternoon there is no question but that the israeli people who are our soldiers and our citizens they want to see the utter destruction of hamas whether that will come about or not we'll wait and see right and again this isn't from from a point of an offensive or an attack on hamas or even on the palestinian people for that matter it's a matter of retaliation we're talking about israel being hit first and then obviously retaliating to that hit and you mentioned that there is the possibility of a ground incursion obviously that is being reported widespread across the board not just here in israel but infantry troops and tanks did enter Gaza today being friday for what they're calling localized raids to clear the area of terrorists explain this just from a security point of view because to many watching the terrorists were in israeli territory crossing through the border fence breaking it down coming into kibbutz and Moshavim all the communities in the south why would then the IDF be clearing the terrorists from the area with inside the Gaza Strip so first of all a little bit of context when you speak about retaliation a country cannot survive in this region if it falls prey to a horrific attack such as the one that we all bore witness to this past saturday morning unless it retaliates unless it actually dare I speak the word brings vengeance to those who wrought such horrors upon our people we need to retaliate it needs to be strong it needs to be decisive and as I say the extent of that retaliation remains to be seen we've got the war cabinet that's now been brought about we'll see what they decide I'm a little bit skeptical though I am a minority voice on this particular point I don't know if prime minister Netanyahu and Benny Gantz and Gadi Aizenkot who have all worked together with regard to the Gaza front several times in the past and have always chosen a cautious approach to that front I'm skeptical as to whether or not we'll see them change tactics change strategy and go with defense minister gallant what's very interesting about this of course is that gallant is a bit of an unknown quantity here gallant is the current defense minister we have not seen him work with prime minister Netanyahu in this capacity he may be able to pound his fist on the table and say the destruction of Hamas is what's needed and what we are going to pursue now with regard to our movement there into the Gaza Strip I think that it makes all the sense in the world that we clear the area as best we can of anybody and everybody that's why you're seeing the air force flying sorties over the strip they are trying to soften the ground for the ground troops to move in in the case that that happens of course in order to reduce to its lowest number the number of casualties and soldiers that we receive back in an injured or worse state that has to be be undertaken it is being undertaken in a very professional manner and I hope that we are going to take the gloves off and hit them with a clenched rolled ball that fist ready to smash our enemy because at the end of the day this is an existential threat and it's been made very clear it's either us or them and I thank you for saying that because for many many years and you will have heard this as well so-called experts have said that the Gaza Strip does not constitute a strategic threat it's a low level threat they were wrong I believe that they were wrong and spoken about the fact that they were wrong they misunderstood the situation there we entered into as a people as a government our upper security establishment as well we entered into a mindset of complacency of failing to understand the intentions of our enemies and now unfortunately too many of our citizens have paid the price and too many of our citizens and soldiers are being held hostages and we must must bring back those hostages Benjamin Anthony the co-found and CEO of the Miriam Institute thank you so much for being here in studio on our rolling and breaking news coverage thank you for having me that brings us to an end of this broadcast but stay tuned at the top of the hour we'll have more updates for you on day seven of the war here in Israel made for me a unique concept in Israel custom made men's fashion to your measurements made for me designer of all your events schedule your appointment at www.madeforme.co.il made for me official dresser of i24 news good evening ladies and gentlemen officially in a state of war this is a very active scene and we need to get in the car as we're talking within a hundred soldiers and civilians have been kidnapped entire families including babies and children and elderly were butchered in their beds awaken the giant and we are ready and we are strong everyone is showing up this is the unity is because we go subsea and we utilize the hydrostatic pressure the weight of the water above your head we're able to save energy breaking news coverage here on i24 news it's day seven of war here in israel over the past week the death toll has risen more than 1300 people were murdered by Hamas but the close to 3300 wounded by their combined attacks rocket alert sirens continue to blare throughout communities in the south with some homes taking direct hits but thankfully no casualties in recent hours the garrison terror group has expanded their reach by launching rockets at both central and even northern israel as well well let's cross now live to the center of the country correspondent hamdas al-khod joins us from jerusalem hamda and updates on the security situation in the holy city batia 11 palestinians killed in the west bank today in several demonstrations that were actually marching towards checkpoints in support of the palestinian cause and solidarity with gaza and the continued bombardment there in jerusalem completely quiet completely deserted as the israeli military has set up blockades throughout several parts leading to the old city so that people wouldn't come here behind me at demascus gate and flashpoint signs to demonstrate the israeli military is on high alert there are so many troops deployed throughout the city because they're really afraid of a large show of force perhaps a pro-hamas demonstration happening inside of the old city so the israeli military is taking extra precautions extra closures a lot of additional security measures to ensure the safety of the surrounding area correspondent hamdas al-khod they're giving us an update in jerusalem meanwhile an update on the military responses in the north skirmishes have broken out between the idf and hezbollah after the lebanese terror group claimed responsibility for targeting israeli military posts on the northern border the idf now says its drones are striking hezbollah sites in lebanon in the south the idf says infantry forces entered the gaza strip earlier in localized raids in order to clear the area of potential terrorists and locate missing israelis this as the israeli militaries fighter jets and drones continue to pound the strip with me here in studio is reserve brigadier general amir avivi the director of the israel defense and security forum and the former idf deputy commander of the gaza strip division amir you were talking to me just before we went live on air that you were just in the south at the gaza division headquarters what can you tell us in terms of the idf's operational capabilities down there and the situation near the border well you know i entered the headquarters everybody is calm you go to the war room and you see a war machine people focused people come people very very motivated people very very hungry you know they really feel that hamas needs to be destroyed completely destroyed and you know i felt really a sense of proudness to see people coming you know it's reserve reserve soldiers and women and men coming and together really building the power of israel to launch this attack on gaza you reserve yourself so no doubt joining in that team effort now i know in particular here at the studio's journalists are exhausted and and also the state of israel many people not being able to get proper sleep for days on end as we are now in days seven you say that the idf is focused is there a sense of somewhat exhaustion among the ranks of the idf or there's a clear purpose and and a very sort of a weakness no it's definitely a weakness everybody is getting prepared for a possible ground forces attack which is imminent because if we want to destroy hamas there is only one way to do it is to go into gaza and destroy hamas and it cannot be done from the air from there we can weaken them but we saw it again and again and again even if we attack with the air force 51 days in two years they build up their forces again and we cannot have this kind of threat again we need to eliminate hamas but we also need to make sure that forever there will never be force like that an evil force like that on the other side of the border and this requires in the future full freedom of operation for the idf just as we have in janeen on shchem meaning the idf in the future will need to be able to apprehend terrorists stop people on every day basis just as the division in juden samara i'm here to stay with us because i want to continue this conversation but i do want to check in with our correspondent mary macauliffe who is standing by for us in the south of the country mary gaza city residents are heeding the warning and moving south according to the idf what do you currently know we know that there was a military corridor or a humanitarian corridor open until eight p.m. this evening it's now past eight p.m. that's right batia so in the last few minutes since that corridor allegedly closed we haven't heard reports about strikes immediately happening on these citizens but the israeli military at least says that it saw evidence of gaza residents fleeing of course earlier today and throughout the day we have seen evidence of some gaza rivers the residents deciding to go south but we've also seen disturbing footage that has also come out that apparently shows strikes hitting those convoys as they're evacuating south this was one after the idf spokesman then again put out that warning saying on this specific route through gaza city that goes from the north to the south they would not target it so that has just expired how many residents will have actually managed to make it south before the apm deadline did pass that remains to be seen it is over one million people who live in the north of gaza it's a very small densely populated area that will now be forced into the southern part of the strip where another million or so people live so again this is a very difficult task for the residents who are living there as they deal with electricity and food and what they say are water sources in the area and they say they are facing a humanitarian catastrophe israeli military for its part says issuing this warning saying that it wants to do everything it can to try and prevent civilian casualties this is why it ordered residents to evacuate south and that because they will continue to be striking extensively in the gaza strip as it continues to launch strikes there and speaking of strikes mary earlier when we spoke to you there was a strike from gaza into the southern communities of israel with you having to take cover yourself there in ashkelon around the 30 minute drive or some 25 kilometers away from the gaza border what has it been like since then has it been relatively quiet or siren still blaring in ashkelon it has been quiet here in ashkelon and as i was saying even just before the siren sir i had been telling you that had been a fairly quiet day here earlier this morning it was a very loud day for residents here who living here some 150 rockets were fired by from hamas towards this area many residents having to take shelter but walking around the city it's really unclear how many residents are still living here and how many have decided to move into safer parts of the country this is also what we saw on sterot where we were this morning we're almost all civilians have evacuated and that's under government orders and we're now seeing some in the israeli government trying to push to get extra measures taken to give steps to the residents here to try and give them more help during the situation as they continue to see these rockets fired from gaza towards their city correspondent mary mccall if giving us an update there in the south of israel thanks for that and still with me here in studios reserve brigadier general amir avivi amir just before we crossed to mary in the south we were busy talking about the operational capabilities of the idea in the south and it's been a big thing that many in the defense establishment have come out and said we are going to wipe hamas off the face of the earth they will not exist they will cease to exist however there are ministers even former ministers like moshe alon the former defense minister coming out and saying israelis need to perhaps lower their expectations because it is going to be impossible to completely wipe them out surely israelis in particular in the south and in particular with what's going on now the worst massacre and killing of jews since the holocaust cannot live with that kind of an answer well you know i was at the camp of moshe bogie alone and i'm sure that if he was chief of staff and he was in charge of a massacre that occurred when he is chief of staff he wouldn't talk like that he will make sure that we wipe hamas now this is about conquering an area and then really cleaning it up we know how to do it it's hard it's difficult i have been in the last few days setting expectations to the israeli public it's going to be long it will take months it there is two stages the first stages it's the initial attack where you go to really the centers of gravity of the enemy but then but this is not the difficult part the difficult part really is cleaning up later on house to house finally finding the tunnels finding the operatives the leaders the rocket launchers this will take a long time we'll have to regain control for the gaza street for a very long time and and even afterwards we will need to have full freedom of operation as i said just as we have in juda and samara and the west bank we this is the only way to prevent any possible build-up of terror infrastructure in the future i just want to tell our viewers rocket siren alerts have been activated in central israel not necessarily here in tel aviv but we did hear those booms just above the studio amir what next what next the the idea goes into gaza as as you mentioned a ground incursion wipes out hamas by no means comparing the situation but drawing similarities between what happened with the united states troops in afghanistan the first point as you mentioned was to get rid of the taliban but then they were there for 20 years of which they tried to somehow reform the country put a political institution or beef up the army in place and look where it is now we're back to square one with the taliban empower what happens next in gaza once hamas is defeated the distance between the towns that were raided to the sea it's five kilometers this is not the united state or one side of the globe in afghanistan on the other side of the globe it's five kilometers it's it's a simple joke in the morning it's you know it's it's really close and for the idea once you gain control to have freedom of operation in an area of the width of five kilometers it's not something difficult now we have to also really think out of the box about new solutions it wouldn't be wise for example to transfer gaza in the future to the palestinian authority which are are worse almost as hamas they they want to annihilate us they're funding terror with billions they have laws designated to pay terrorists to kill jews this is the palestinian authority so we really need new kind of thinking i can tell you that we in idsf have developed four different solutions none of them undermine israel security and all of them are also beneficial for the palestinians so we're stuck with all the ideas and the reality has changed dramatically and we need to really start talking about new ideas of course this will require a whole different discussion not now but first let's really defend our citizens do you think that there'll be almost a collaboration between the israeli military and israeli politicians and the international community because as you mentioned and as israeli politicians have mentioned gaza will not be the same we cannot go back what was is not what's going to be and so first stage get hamas out and completely annihilate them second stage possibly making sure that they don't come up from the ground again but again two million residents of which yes some are part of the hamas organization um what do we do then with two million people okay i'll start talking about gaza and then and we'll permission i'll zoom out and to to really get the big picture we need to evacuate the palestinians to the saini peninsula and for this we need the involvement of in the international community they must pressure egypt to open the border and let the palestinians move south into the saini peninsula the ui needs to build a city of tents provide food water and and not leave these people in a in a war zone to be used as human shields for these savage terrorists because this is what's going to happen well as part of you know these efforts and humanitarian aid in egypt saying they're part of the muslim brotherhood and they stand shoulder to shoulder with the palestinians then why then haven't they opened the borders well it's a good question and you know in the last decade 300 000 palestinians have crossed this border 2000 a day i've emigrated to turkey to europe palestinians don't want to stay there we should give them the chance and the opportunity to go out and this will keep their lives and also will enable us to focus on the terrorists and not on a you know hitting civilians which we all don't want to do but having said that we're not going to endanger our soldiers we are going to maneuver in a very aggressive way targeting military installations and making sure that we manage to do our job now you asked about in what's going on internationally this is not a local war this is a global war this is a war that was initiated because iran wanted to stop the buildup of a coalition a western israeli sunni coalition through the normalization with saudi arabia in order to counter the front that has emerged the russian iranian front that is backed up by the chinese economy and what iran did with hamas this really got the us angry because it's hurting dramatically us interest and this is why us is moving ships this is why they are threatening militarily iran and his bala in syria this is not a local war this is a global war he never even britain is sending warships to the region eventually it's not only about hamas and it's not only about gaza we'll have to destroy his bala and we'll have to deal with the iran's aggression and nuclear plans and until we we don't finish with all of that we cannot really say that we have secured the state of israel and the region i'm here stay with me i want to move now to a guest who joins us now on skype from televiv ted tiomkin a krav maga instructor who returned to israel to serve the country after hearing about the war ted thank you so much for joining me here this evening firstly talk to us a little bit about your experience my understanding is that you were in thailand heard what was going on here in israel and needed obviously to catch a flight to come back to the country what was that whole ordeal like yes so uh actually to be in all honesty i wasn't planning to like to stay longer i was supposed to fly back two days ago and actually had to postpone my flight because initially my flight was via a buddhabi so in the last minute i managed to get a straight flight can you hear me yes i can hear you yes so i got a yes uh flight from Bangkok there was a uh a flight that was basically uh giving chance to all israelis traveling in the far east there were people from all over i met a guys a bunch of guys from there were traveling in japan others scattered throughout thailand so we had this late night flight uh from Bangkok and um yeah so um just asking uh trying to understand everyone so most of the people i saw on the flight were young people indeed who uh wanted to get back and uh go join the army as a reservist as myself um i've been in my uh uh military service uh krav maga instructor so i am my case it's maybe a bit different i wasn't dispatched with a specific unit i was working in all of the army so currently i'm in contact with uh the chief instructor the head of the krav maga in the army and uh from what i hear from him uh there are many people many fellow instructors that are volunteering that uh um uh he said approximately 50 to each lesson they offer there are 50 volunteers so um um but yeah in in a in any way possible i'll be able to know probably within the next days what uh what i will be able to do whether it's in logistics or uh going to uh um to the front or in every way possible um yeah everyone's willing to contribute no doubt a sense of national pride that's in particular the israel defense forces israeli children grow up knowing that they have to serve and and want to serve israeli parents on the other hand mostly concerned about sending their children to the front line between you and your family was there ever almost a dilemma or or a decision to make or was it just clear that regardless of how you could serve you were coming home to serve uh it's funny you're asking that we we haven't questioned that too much but i had like a brief uh conversation with my mom and from what i got she's like obviously she's uh we have an expression in nibu which is uh to make someone like uh uh like deadly despair so i asked her if she's gonna make me feel that way about uh going to reserve but she and what she replied to me was no it's you that are going to do that to me but i'm able to live with that go and do just what you have to do so um so yeah i think that that uh i represents the the feelings of most israelis right now it's the right thing to do and we know what's at stake we know what's the risk uh but uh yeah um it's probably a feeling of no choice really it's it's a difficult thing for many onlookers in in particular non-jews perhaps or non-israelis to understand israel's a small country and everyone knows someone who has been directly impacted by this but there's a fortune of soldiers that reservists that also are foreign and are flying into the state to come and serve once again not necessarily knowing anyone that has been murdered by kamas there's a deep sense of connection amongst jews amongst israelis what does it feel like possibly going to the front lines you know certain countries don't fully understand fighting for a cause or perhaps because it's such an existential threat i think it's a latter i think the thing that i was like in this way last weeks that i've been uh actually this last week that the thing was brought on to the eyes of the world and i was discussing it with the people from all over the world in thailand is that uh we're not that much fighting for a cause for an ideology as much as we really are fighting from our home you know that could can be bombarded in in in any second it's not that we have a uh front line we have frontier which is uh miles from home and we're driven by ideology we just we are fighting for the home for the neighborhood for the city you know for your direct proximity it's much more tangible for an israeli and we know like or my my parents know the past generations if we don't fight we we're going to lose it like right away because israeli is so small you know we don't we don't have a what what usually happens uh is that you have like a buffer zone for deterrence and people are sent there in war for us it's the proximity we're fighting straight from home so um yeah the the the feeling is much more tangible ted tiom kena krav magai instructor and reservist to return to israel from thailand to come and serve your country we salute you and thank you very much for your service very much about you let's cross now live to our correspondent robert swift is standing by for us near the israel lebanon border robert sirens again going off on the south uh the southern communities in israel what can you tell us in terms of an update from the north in the north the idf has said in the last hour that it is striking hezbollah targets with uavs with drones and it has done this in response to hezbollah admitting that it was responsible for fire across the border at israeli targets this is the fifth admission by hezbollah that it has been responsible for attacks against israel in the last few days that incident took place in the uh close to the israeli kibbutz of of anita which is right on the border kibbutz where there was a suspected um infiltration across the border when idf forces moved in to investigate this they were fired upon and they responded with airstrike excuse me they responded with artillery fire and with tank fire now in that incident uh close to it there was a number of journalists on the northern side of the border on the lebanese side of the border that were were struck in an explosion including a reuters videographer named isam abdallah who's based out of beirut um who was killed and another number of other journalists were wounded this is still being investigated as to to who was responsible for the fire but that remains to be seen the actual security incident itself on the israeli side of the border closed up shortly afterwards with residents of the kibbutz being told that they could return to normal but that is not the only security incident taken place along this border which has seen heightened tensions for days and if you can if you look just behind me you might be able to see we're up on the hill uh about two kilometers from where we are there's a fire burning on the hill and this is close to the israeli community of misgav am where rocket alerts went off earlier and that fire which presumably caused by fall from the rocket continues to burn and as a result of that and and these security tensions which are taking place here for a matter of days there's been a number of skirmishes the the communities along here are really quite on edge we've been noticing it with our interactions with the locals and with the israeli soldiers who are defending this area that many of them are quite on edge and you can understand why with this being the seventh day of of the fighting and everybody is wondering whether this border here will also open up as a northern front to go alongside with the southern front correspondent robert swift giving us an update there from the north of israel thank you still in studio with me is reserve brigadier general amir aviv yamir the last point that rob main speaking of the residents being on edge in the north no doubt the residents across the country are on edge and there's no telling what what is going to unfold with regards to the trauma and the psychological aspect of this but there's reports coming out that hamas is now publishing videos showing that it was actually taking care of babies and children on a lot of these kibbutzim parents no way inside i'm hoping possibly in the coming hours we'll have this footage but is this part of the psychological war i think that hamas understands that we're going to annihilate them and they're trying to show excuses as if they are human but they're animals they're worse than animals and they cannot exist anymore i mean we see what happened in the israeli towns there is no words to describe the inhumanity that what of what happened hanged babies decapitated they decapitated you know heads of babies the raped women they burned people alive they did things we haven't seen since in the holocaust and we need to completely eradicate them destroy them and not only in Gaza all over the world like the Nazis we need to hunt them down and kill all of them this is what's going to happen we're not going to forgive the Jewish people will never ever forget what happened here and they'll pay the price reserve brigadier general amir avivi the director of the israel defense and security forum in the former adf deputy commander of the Gaza strip division who's currently in reserves thank you for that thank you more to come at the top of the hour over 1300 casualties and over 3000 injuries and the toll keeps climbing we bring you the testimonies from the front line from those who managed to survive in the most graphic brutal images so the whole world can see what hamas did follow us as israel battles a terror threat emanating from the south and the north join i-24 news for the real story of what's going on a unique concept in israel custom made men's fashion to your measurements made for me designer of all your events schedule your appointment at www.madeforme.co.il made for me official dresser of i-24 news it's officially in a state of war this is a very active scene and we need to get in the car as we're talking within a hundred soldiers and civilians have been kidnapped entire families including babies and children and elderly were butchered in their beds awaken the giant and we are ready and we are strong everyone is showing up this is the unity more than a hundred israelis according to official reports by the government have been abducted to Gaza unprecedented these are military personnel but also civilians that have been abducted and the hospitals are full of patients that are being treated some others are hiding still perhaps and police forces and military forces are looking for them one of the scenes that had people fleeing from them yesterday was a party a nature party that was taking place in raeem on a holiday and we're now joined by shani tzaban who is looking for her sister bal zoho who was there at the party i understand thank you very much shani for speaking with us i imagine i can't imagine how distressing this day is thank you for being with us tell me what do you know about what happened to bal okay so first of all thank you for letting me speak because we want every we want to publish everywhere we can so should we could find her so my sister and her name is bal zoho she is 23 and yesterday and friday more correct she was at a party in raeem nova party and all we know is that she spoke with us around six in the morning six and a half uh she was calling my mom and asking her for coming to get her because we had rockets and we also had rockets we also were hiding from the rockets and i mean the Hamas were bombing us i mean from six in the morning we were just we couldn't get out out of the shelter it was it was something that we never ever had here and we and we didn't know how to react it and we thought about the the rockets and then my sister is calling she's at the party and she wanted us to come to take her and my mom told her okay so the the rockets will come down and i'll get out and come to get you and after like less than 10 minutes my sister called my mom and screaming mom mom mom and my mom said what what happened what happened and the call was disconnected just disconnected there wasn't a sign there uh i called her back and she didn't hear me i was trying to talk with her and she she couldn't hear anything and then she sent my mom a message around 7 30 we don't have a sign here i i can't speak with you and that's the only information we knew from her uh her friends is uh is at the hospital at Soroka and they say that uh they it's right so high of course take your time i can imagine how hard it is um i mean i can't imagine to be honest but um of course it's very very hard friends are getting hurt and get shot in the leg in another place we don't know we just don't know anything i mean it's unbelievable how can we not know anything about my sister where she is where what happened to her which reader we don't know anything i mean it's it's unbelievable she went to a party to to a party with her friends it's i mean who can imagine this stuff like this the terrorist come and just shoot everybody and we don't know what's going on with her we don't know know and we and we are my mom and my dad can't even speak that's why i'm on there i'm her i'm her big sister they can't speak they can we just we're sitting here 30 hours after this event we don't know what's going on with her like 30 hours after it it's it's unbelievable my parents all day yesterday and today went from site to site on country just to search for her in the hospitals and get dna tested so they can find her and you just want one piece of information of her and you learn why why why are you here today i understand that you're looking for your sister that's right since yesterday around the hour of a two o'clock p.m. that was the last time we heard anything any word from a little sister she is a medic in a kibbutz baeri that's one of the kibbutzes who was that's one of the kibbutzes who was under a very serious attack of terror attackers and the rockets shooting still it's under a very heavy shooting so as i was saying amici is the medic of the kibbutz she was trapped in the clinic with the injurance and a multiple amount of dead people and injurious people while they are surrendered by terror attackers in the outside around the hour of two o'clock they got inside i was open to break in they was able to break in and they shoot they shot all of them i meet my sister just record as a message because she was not able to type anymore she recorded us a message while we could have here all of the shotguns and ever since there we lost any connection with her we have no idea where is she if she's either alive or dead we have no idea if she's in the israeli field in the israeli territory or either in gaza strip we have no idea where is she or what happens where we are desperate for any piece of information we are miserable and desperate for every piece of information anything yes my sister was at the party she is the she's a young jury designer and she went there fulfilling her dream and to sell her jewelry and on Saturday the attack started and she started to run away with her friends my parents managed to call her during the during the time until last call until past eight when she told us that they're being shot at and that the battery is being lost she's lost and they're on the run after that while we try to understand what happens with a family and friends we discovered that she she ran away with a group of people they had to split a few times during that time because the terrorists shot them them while running and after after a while she split for the last time that we know it's about nine a.m. in the on the day morning and that's the last time that we know where she was we got it from a person that was running away with her and he told us the whole story from his point of view later on we continue searching the web and trying to understand what happened we found a few videos that shows that my sister was kidnapped my baby sister was kidnapped and then we were showing her with a few terrorists among the thousands of Israelis across the country concerned over the fate of still unaccounted for friends and family is Noi Levy now one of her friends Ofer Tsarfati went missing during that outdoor music festival after apparently he helped his girlfriend Noi's other friend Shoval Gaal escape from Hamas terrorists who attacked that events but unfortunately we don't know his fate no I just fill us in on what you know about that story what happened to your friends down at that music festival actually what happened is that they became they came to the party everything was okay suddenly all the music was shut off and the sirens began and all the alarms went wild and everyone started to run towards the cars and this exit and they were stuck in a like a line of cars that was both sided like there's no way out terrorists from the right from the left from each direction and he helped her to get into the car to escape and he was left behind and got on another car which was in the middle of a shooting fight and that is the last thing we know that he was shot and the other friends that was in the car with them was shot as well that's the the shoval Gaal your the your other friend what is her condition do we know I mean did she make it out safe and of course it must have been it must be even physically there just the trauma of having gone through that event yeah she's at home and she's safe with her family and friends but she's mentally broken she saw things that we can't even imagine to see she herself doesn't really know what she really saw and she's very very very wanted to find him and know he's okay he's alive we have no clue we have nothing about I want to go now to Lahavim in Israel south where I'm joined by Alex Sherman on the phone the father of Ron an adducted IDF soldier can you explain to us a little bit about how you know that your son was taken where he was what he was doing at the time and if you've heard any information on him okay let's start from it that I was on the phone with him since the start yeah and we was with us on the phone and he told us actually that terrorists are coming from him for him and they just took him we just heard last words that he said goodbye to us that he loves us and we didn't know that time if he was dead or alive a few hours later we just saw a video that was running on the media from the Hamas and then we saw all the procedure all the attack on the base the base was very badly bombarded and we saw those gunmen just coming into the base you have to think to know that this base was not the military base it's not the combat base it was just the limit and the way and the place that all the trades is done the coming inside and outside of the Gaza Strip and my son job was to give permissions to the drivers to get in and out that was his job all right so I want to tell you about a tunnel had a tunnel is my nephew is 12 and a half years old and my brother oh had is 49 years old they both live in Kibbutz near Oz at the morning of Saturday on the attack they actually my brother and he was just defending his family out of the safe room because there was a problem with the door so he was outside and the children with my sister-in-law was inside and he was waiting with the gun to the terrorist and then they there was shooting outside and probably he was injured by the shooting and and after they shoot him so they opened the safe room door and they took my sister-in-law Bacheva and her three children Eitan 12 years old Yael 10 years old and Liel one year and eight months old they took them and they put them on two bikes one bike Bacheva with the two daughters and the other bike Eitan the 12 and a half years old my beautiful nephew and they just gone to to the fence they just drove to the fence and something like 200 or 300 meter from the fence came two tanks that actually made some something that the bike of Bacheva and the daughter just stopped and the bike with Eitan continue through to the fence and Bacheva got the bravest decision and she managed to escape what a miracle what a miracle with the with the baby on her hand and Yael the 10 years old and she managed to escape no shoes with her their pajamas and they run back to the fields of Kibbutz Niroz and then they done and then they do do themselves dead because there was lots of terrorists running to the fence so Bacheva told the little child please make you we will get on the ground and you will make yourself dead and then they done it themselves dead and somehow two of the terrorists came nearby and tell them you are coming with us and she said and she said no there wasn't armed so she keep on running she just get up keep on running and then somehow they get to a bus with a bus with a soldiers Israeli soldiers um i'm sorry it's a little bit hard for me to really get out the entire story right here but what we know um and kind of a concise version is that Maya um my husband's sister went out to the party and at 6 30 a.m we woke up to rockets and we were looking for her we were so confused why she wasn't in the house um we were calling her and she was screaming that she was running away from famas terrorists on trucks shooting at everyone she's telling us on the phone that she's seeing people left and right you know falling from gunshots um and we were just trying to understand the situation trying to understand what was happening in and out of the mud of the shelter so it was hard for us really to read the news and to understand um and then once we finally got to the news we realized that Hamas terrorists had infiltrated Israel um through Gaza from the air the land and they tried to buy sea and we realized that this is not a situation that we'd ever experienced before we are at war and a war that we didn't predict and you know Israel wasn't ready for um I can tell you that we are currently living in a nightmare right now because we're really really just waiting we've been over 40 hours waiting for our my father-in-law my husband's dad to come home um so his daughter made it home she made it home right she got away from the party and while he was looking for her he was missing yeah they were 20 minutes away from each other they were also communicating on the phone we were communicating with him um he was 20 minutes drive from her when he was at so much Mifflas Mifflas seam um that's the last time we saw we had connection with him the phone got disconnected um and his car is still there but we got information from some IDF soldiers that he's not in the car um there are gunshots on the car but we're really just looking for anybody in the area of Mifflas seam or um Oane to tell us if they've seen him because we're just really really praying that he comes home soon around six a month Saturday he called to our our father an update that there is a missus alarm he and his friends found the cover under the deck of the bar and they waited that we're the the interception of the iron don't so they'll be ready to go out few moments afterwards he and his friends ran to the cars and started driving home in two vehicles my brother was alone in in his car he saw in the side of the road two girls that tried to escape as well they was very nervous and afraid and our brother with his special self-control and nonchalant he just told them with a smile jumping girls i will take you home don't worry it's on me they started to drive but in the but in a moment dozens of terrorists blocked the road from everywhere from both sides and