take a look at this video coming in out of the Israel Gaza border just minutes ago here the Israeli military now saying that it has killed more than 170 gunmen and detained 800 Terror suspects during its operation at Gaza shifa Hospital the Israel Defense Force releasing its latest figures a short time ago saying the operation which began Monday will not end until all terrorists are caught quote dead or alive this comes as Russia and China Act vetoed a US measure in the United Nations security C
ouncil that would have called for quote an immediate and sustained ceasefire in Gaza I do want to talk about all of this here so let's bring in Mark Chandler director of government relations at Coastal Carolina University and a professor of practice also a former senior defense intelligence official thank you so much as always for taking the time to be here with us on live now you're quite welcome Josh and happy Saturday afternoon to you happy Saturday well first off I do want to talk about that
operation at chifa hospital we've been getting a lot of information since it did begin on Monday here now of course we know that dozens upon dozens of terrorists have been killed and detained that is according to officials there with the IDF so my question for you is how significant of an operation is this overall when you're talking about the war as a whole well Josh I think it's a fairly significant and it illustr rates the complexity of operating in an urban environment and also fighting aga
inst terrorists so if you recall alifa hospital was at the center of a lot of public discussion Global discussion uh several months ago November December we had a lot of issues about IDF saying that the Hamas terrorists are operating from the hospital there's a tunnel Network under the hospital hospital staff are complicit with Hamas and so that received a lot of attention and it wasn't until sometime after that fact that that Israel was able to illustrate the command and control that operated f
rom underneath that hospital in the vast tunnel complex if you recall also there was the missile incident where Israel was accused of attacking this hospital and it turns out that it was a Hamas terrorist Islamic Jihad missile so I think what you're seeing here with those complexities of this operation Israel had turned its attention from northern Gaza down to say conun where they're operating and then also the planning for Rafa thus leaving the northern po part of Gaza a little vacant from mili
tary operations and so Hamas was able to reinfiltration against the IDF from there leaving Israel no choice but to go back in so you talked about 170 Hamas terrorist killed over 500 have been detained so that shows that Hamas really has continue to maintain a viable fighting force and is not ready to give up against fighting there so these operations are going to have to continue you're going to see Israel clear an area and then they're going to have to go back into these areas just because of h
ow the terrorist organizations operate I want to talk next about the United Nations security Council because we have seen several votes on several resolutions that have called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza the most recent was just yesterday on Friday when the US backed resolution actually failed because Russia and China chose to veto that I do want to talk about the US backed portion of this because what does that say to you about the US and Israel relationship when you talk about a resolut
ion calling for a ceasefire that is put forth by the US which is Israel's biggest Ally well first off in trying to put this in the context of of the number of resolutions that that have come forth there have been three resolutions prior to this that the US has you know vetoed based on its power as a permanent member of the security Council so in doing that I think what the administration and and obviously I don't have Insight I'm not sitting in their planning meetings but what it appears to me i
s you know the US is facing some backlash in international public opinion and in domestic politics so I think this was an opportunity for this Administration to try to put forth and I'm delving into politics here put forth an idea that shows they are with the public opinion the global public opinion anti-israeli in nature that it does support a ceasefire in the Gaza situation now there's wording that the US put in there that has been different from any other resolutions one they're holding Hamas
accountable so that was different from some some of the other resolutions and then and then a subtle difference here is that this didn't call for an immediate cessation of all fighting and a permanent ceasefire it talked about creating a ceasefire so I think the US tried to walk a line uh try to kind of Market this to the World Market this to a domestic audience if you will uh knowing full well it would not pass I do believe the US felt that it would not pass but it gets to play publicly with p
utting this forward in the UN and then also simultaneously having blinkin make the visit so the UN even if it had passed and we're going to see multiple resolutions there's no enforcement mechanism so I think the US kind of played it safe uh and and a little bit disingenuous in putting this forward and that leads to my next question here because we know that both China and Russia have have said that they do want an immediate ceasefire so why did they not vote in favor of this us-backed resolutio
n well two two primary reasons Josh one of them is it called out Hamas this resolution the United States put some put some blame on Hamas for initiating this with the terrorist attacks on October 7th so it put that out there and and Russia and Israel I mean excuse me Russia and China do not want that to be played out so that's one aspect two you are seeing strategic International diplomacy at play here so Russia and China are rarely if ever going to come up with a resolution that that goes again
st what they perceive as some of their allies and a way that would allow the us to stay kind of balanced in the world so they're keeping the United States off balance they're keeping the global public opinion against the United States this was not a surprise move uh you see this all the time if if we had backing and if the UN Security Council were a viable option you would see Russia out of Ukraine because there's multiple resolutions but Russia keeps you know blocking those so you would see a l
ot of different aspects here you would also see for for our regional interest is Lebanese Hezbollah would not be within 18 miles of the northern Israeli border so the UN doesn't really have any backing regardless of what said but this is definitely International diplomacy uh playing out on a large stage there is going to be another measure that is put forward there uh for the security Council that's expected to happen Monday initially it was going to be today that's not happening do you think th
e us is going to vote in favor of any other measure here that would call for an immediate ceasefire and a lasting ceas fire or since they already put forth that resolution are they kind of going to sit back and maybe veto the next one and the next one and the next one I I I think that's a great Insight Josh because actually the US believes it's in a position now where they can carry forth you know domestically and internationally we pushed for the ceas fire and and you already heard it in some o
f secretary blink's statements is that Russia and China did nothing but obstruct this potential ceasefire and this call for a ceasefire in this so there's they're trying to put Russia and China in a bad light while trying to put the US in a good light so yes the US will veto any resolution that that I believe puts Israel in a in a dire straight or calls Israel out as the perpetrator of what's Happening Here without calling out Hamas or demanding Hamas conduct an immediate ceasefire and a return
of all hostages so yes the US will veto I would be shocked if they don't another visit by Secretary of State Anthony blinkin over to Israel happening just yesterday and we know there was a meeting between him and Israeli officials including Netanyahu what is the purpose in your mind what is he trying to Signal there by visiting Israel again this is the fifth or sixth time since the war did break out yeah it it's his six visit Josh so that's a lot of diplomacy that blinkin has going back and fort
h so it coincided with the introduction of the resolution at the UN so now the US looks like the good guy in this looks like we are pushing and pressing Israel to conduct this ceasefire focus on humanitarian operations at the same time Lincoln's trying to show a little bit of partnership with the people of Israel not necessarily the leadership of Israel and you can see that in the discussions that Netanyahu and blinkin had and the different perspectives that each took from those discussions so w
hen you look at that I mean I mean blink did meet with some of the the hostages Israeli hostage families and said that we are focused on ensuring that the hostages are released while at the same time telling Netanyahu you cannot go forward with thefa so I think again we're playing a little bit to the the public uh discussion back here in the United States we're playing to an international audience and we're trying to to show that we have some influence there uh with uh the Israeli leadership and
and to be honest with with you whatever the United States says it will not stop the the Israelis from going into Rafa on their timetable and and one thing to add to that is that Israel has agreed to several us demands they they were supposed to send a planning team back here late this this week that didn't make it but they'll be here early next week to discuss the Rafa plans with us planners military planners and part of that and the first and most important part is the evacu situation that Isr
ael wants to conduct of the refugees in Rafa so that's that's exactly what the US is asking that's what the International Community is asking and it's what Israel is providing but they need help from the Arab states they need help from other authorities than just people criticizing what they're trying to focus on we know that house Speaker Mike Johnson has now invited Netanyahu to address Congress do you think that's something that is going to happen and if it does what sort of role could that p
lay in I guess convincing Americans out there who are maybe on the fence that this war needs to happen against Hamas well you know and and here we're we're definitely hitting the the political discussions this week it's been it's been high drama in US domestic politics and international politics all week so a actually Netanyahu did speak uh to Republican members via video earlier this week at at a republican luncheon so he did get an opportunity speak and that was in response obviously to what S
enator Schumer said on the floor of the Senate uh a week and a half ago really criticizing Netanyahu and and trying to put pressure political pressure from the United States on Israeli politics and so there was significant backlash from the Republicans in this and I think what speaker Johnson's trying to do is show support that there exists a strong level of support not just with Republicans but I think in a by partisan manner in the United States of support for what Israel is doing and against
what Hamas did and continues to do now will this play out that's going to be difficult because you're talking about a bipartisan joint session of Congress the house is controlled by the Republicans the Senate's controlled by the Democrats so it's not clear if they're going to reach an agreement so if if it does and if this does in fact take place I think you're going to see a lot of what I would call high drama High rhetoric take place before endearing from some Progressive aspects and Progressi
ve members of the party during and then after any kind of Netanyahu speech to a joint session of Congress now I think it would be important he could message it and I think those on the fence listening to a a balanced approach to this and exp explanation of all the facts I think that's going to start to sway public opinion in a little bit more pro-israeli stance but then you have as we teach in our courses here the bias aspect very strong in many sides of this argument out here that won't be conv
inced we touched on hollah just a little bit a couple minutes ago but I want to talk about the latest that's going on uh to the north there between Israel and Hezbollah what is the latest because we've seen those back and forth attacks that have now been going on since October 8th so what what we're seeing is no let up Josh we are seeing Hezbollah continue to press but but what I have noticed in the last few weeks of trend even though Hezbollah is continuing its attacks they're trying to ramp up
certain specific attacks in in the the intensity of each attack Israel is now taking the battle more to Hezbollah so they're they're trying to do those preemptive strikes that I've talked about before they hit some some areas at almost up to beay this week start to attack those areas and Hezbollah is starting to have to be more cautious in what they're doing and weigh the fact of do they want to conduct this type of attack at this time because Israel's intelligence apparatus is really getting i
ts feet under it now and allowing the IDF to take those preemptive strikes even as far away as Syria because Israel again this week conducted attacks in Syria and those attacks go after where the Iranians are trans shipping equipment missiles whatever it may be and where they're having planning sessions between the irgc and the Hezbollah planners so Israel is doing what it needs to do to try to keep this from escalating but I don't think Hezbollah is going to release the pressure though they are
going to continue the attacks and do what damage they can to Northern Israel and we got to talk about the houthis as well because that's been a topic of conversation for months now any sort of letting up on that end or is the situation continuing to escalate and showing no signs of letting up well I think we're at a consistent high level of attacks that the houthis are conducting you know I had my students this week I said okay I think we're at a lower level this week but when we started to bre
ak down the attacks that occurred almost daily this week we see that the consistent pattern has run through out the last two to three weeks of of at least 15 attacks individual attacks that the houthis are conducting in the in the Gulf of Oman or excuse me the Gulf of Aiden which is to the south of Yemen through the babal Mev and in the Red Sea so a couple of developments that have occurred as those attacks continued last night the us trying to be a little bit more preemptive they they could pro
bably take a page out of the IDF preemption attacks but in trying to do that they hit some sites last night near son some houy storage sites I don't think that's going to stop the houth because we haven't conducted the sustained targeted campaign we need to to stop another military force so that's going to continue as we see this play out no letup now I I do know who the houthi are not going to attack because early in the week they had an agreement with China and Russia to say that they were goi
ng to allow both of those country ships to pass unimpeded through the Red Sea so at least if you're China or Russia you're going to be okay all right well Mark Chandler there at Coastal Carolina University always great talking to you as you're able to break down all of the big topics and developments that happen over really an hourly basis at this point anything else you want to add about any of this before I let you go well Josh there was one thing that that kind of caught my attention this wee
k it was a statement by the National Security advisor Jake Sullivan and then also the director of the EPA about an Iranian threat to our water infrastructure uh so to our sanitation and water infrastructure from Iranian hackers now this is something that I do not believe we would publicly bring out and bring to the attention to try to talk with the state systems and the county systems that control this very vulnerable infrastructure if they did not have intelligence that indicated the Iranians w
ere actively probing and trying to look at a way to Target this infrastructure so I think that's important to bring back to the viewers a little bit that that while there's a war over there there we remain vulnerable through cyber attacks or interference you know here domestically and it's something to keep in mind as we go that there are Global implications to some of these Regional aspects because there are folks out there who do not like us or do not like our support for Israel and will conti
nue to do things uh that will negatively impact our water supply if you will in this case you're right all right Mark Chandler there thank you again as always for taking the time to be here with us we appreciate it you're welcome Josh I appreciate it and you have a great afternoon you too
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