as for the war itself we are getting more information here the Israel Defense Force is now saying that it killed at least 11 gunmen who were trying to plant explosives near troops and others firing rifles and rocket propelled grenades at soldiers in gazes Han Unice over the past week the Israeli military saying that it killed more than a 100 militants and raided weapons warehouses want to talk about all the latest developments here so let's bring in Mary Eisen a retired Colonel of the Israel Def
ense Forces with a long background there in Military Intelligence thank you so much as always for taking the time to join us here wonderful to be able to join you all right so first off I just want to ask you about the current situation we are now in the fourth month of the war between Israel and Hamas we know uh other terrorist organizations also included now technically in the war itself when you talk about Gaza specifically does it appear that Israel is scaling back in any way we're scaling w
hat I would say the intensity throughout the Gaza Strip where we have been fighting both in the northern Gaza Strip in the central Gaza Strip against the different Kamas underground and above ground capabilities and what's happening now is we are stepping back we're in the Gaza Strip we're stepping back and systematically taking care mainly of the Central and South because the sense right now is that those terrorist leaders um specifically Yak sinir who is the head of Kamas in the gazal strip he
is in the South and I think that Israel is very much focused on making sure that he is under intense pressure so we're continuing to systematically take apart the tunnels the caches of weapons the different capabilities but it's a very slow operation and so yes it's a scaling back and a focusing into the area where the top terrorists are right now and one thing that I was talking about when we introduced you here the 11 terrorists that were killed while planting explosives is any of that surpri
sing because we are seeing uh I would say dozens upon dozens of people essentially taken out by the IDF out there as they are fighting against Israel so one of the biggest challenges when you talk about a war and this is as you said the fourth month this is the 16th Saturday since that horrific October 7th Saturday and Israel has been in a War ever since and when you were fighting against the terrorist capabilities that they built them into the urban Arena I don't think we understand what that m
eans we're talking about a built-up area that has apartment buildings and structures and in the and then the different tunnel shafts come up into the road into the apartment building into the entrance into the building and so they the terrorists have the capability to move around underground and to pop up all over the place so when you hear about killing 11 terrorist Fighters here or another 20 or others hundreds in different places it's slow they pop out and then you try to attack them in the t
unnels you cannot just go down and spread out in the tunnels they built the system so that it's completely booby trapped so that the IDF cannot go down and work in these same tunnels as the Hamas terrorist themselves and I do want to take you back out live over to Tel Aviv where this demonstration against net Yahoo and his government is officially underway in connection with the war here now Mary I do want to ask you about this us officials are reporting that President Biden told Netanyahu durin
g a call last week that he cannot support a year-long war in Gaza and he's urging Israel to quickly lower the intensity of its Gaza Invasion what do you make of that and is it likely to actually sway Netanyahu and what he does so Netanyahu doesn't have the same capabilities perhaps in that sense that the president of the United States has legally in that sense he's not like the president he's the Prime Minister he the first amongst equals in that sense there is enormous Israeli backing to the co
ntinuation of fighting against Hamas hand inand with that there is also a very strong intense feeling of myself and everybody in Israel to bring back the hostages the two don't contradict but what Israel has said is that we need to get the hostages back and we need to continue to fight against Hamas that does not mean high intensity fighting for 2024 but it does mean continuing as I said this lows scale different areas focusing targeting every time in a different area inside the Gaza Strip um I
think that Israel does not have the capability to ignore the president of the United States and Israelis hear what President Biden says not just the prime minister of Israel the cabinet cabinet hears it and in Israel we have a cabinet which is made up out of different political parties and this could be something that's going to come up in a cabinet meeting um I'll tell our viewers in that sense in Israel we don't have secretaries we have ministers and these different ministers are from differen
t political parties and right now um prime minister nany wants to keep his Coalition together and he wants to win a war and he wants to bring back hostages and in 2023 the entire year was demonstrations against him and all of that is coming together right now I don't think that we will ignore the United States of America I think there will be differences in rhetoric in the way that it's spoken about outside I know that today there have been Sirens that have been sounding over in Northern Israel
and that is something that is happening a lot of people don't realize on a daily basis because we talk a lot about the fighting over in Gaza but if you're living in Northern Israel you're hearing those and Rockets are being fired in large numbers over it you as well and and one of those things where we talk about this right now this is a war that are Israel is in it's already multi-front from day one from that Saturday 16 weeks ago hisbah already attacked on Israel's northern border they have do
ne so every single day they use diverse weapons they use exact weapons they're using anti-tank weapons they're using um guided missiles they are using um different types what we call um um Generation 3 anti-tank missiles these are top quality Supply to them by Iran um in that shipping route that comes through Iraq through Syria into Lebanon that's been going on every single day there are over two dozen Israeli towns Villages and communities that have been completely evacuated 16 weeks already pe
ople who are displaced inside their own country their houses are being Target targeted byala inside Israel there have been only a few casualties and that's just because we've been very responsible we've evacuated the people butala is basically doing what it wants almost I would call it that they've done um inside Israel an area where um you cannot go inside inside the state of Israel and that includes agricultural communities a city of 24,000 people was evacuated this is an impossible situation
that goes on every day as you said including today Sirens Rockets mortars suicide drones anti-tank guided missiles every single day from Lebanon into Israel fired byal and I want to pull up this post on Twitter or X it's from The Times of Israel now we're not showing the video but there is video that is now circulating showing two children one waving an Israeli flag slipping under the Gaza border fence that's there is that something that happens often because I imagine imine that's got to be sig
nificantly dangerous not only is it dangerous it's very political in that sense we have a lot of voices going on inside Israel you're in an election year you know that you have a lot of voices in the United States we have a war war zone going on there are some very um I will call them extreme voices in Israel um that want to go back and rebuild what was taken down in 2005 when Israel evacuated all of the Gaza Strip um this does not in any way represent the mainstream broad Israeli public and hav
ing said that somebody's parents sent their kids to do that something to look out at um I don't tout extremism on any side of the line and to me that is part of the more extreme Israeli voices that do not have a lot of public backing having said that one of the ministers inside the Israeli um cabinet right now is somebody who definitely supports these kinds of actions we have a diverse cabinet as I said different parties right now and that's part of what's out there it is incredibly dangerous wh
at they did and it's very provocative and it doesn't help any side inside this horrible war that we're in right now I want to talk a little bit about the decision that came down from the icj they have said that they are not going to throw out the genocide case that has been filed by South Africa against Israel they are going to hear it however they're not calling for a ceasefire or anything of that nature they're essentially saying just do everything you can to protect human lives as you are doi
ng this uh offensive over in Gaza is that essentially what Israel has been doing here from the get-go that's should in that sense that's to me why the whole aspect of being put on even in any way inside this at the hog inside the international court of justice for the bulk of Israelis is just impossible to think of for two different things from October 7th when we were under attack being horrifying horrify I mean massacred tortured inside our country inside Israel when we started the Counteratta
ck just to get them out of Israel against the terrorists that had done this assault and the ones that were going back with the hostages into the Gaza Strip we immediately were telling the um civilians in the northern Gaza Strip leave your area we are going to attack we gave notice we're going to attack save lives this is about saving civilian lives and Israel has done this every single day today as we're speaking Israel the Israeli Defense Forces puts out a notice we put it out in Arabic we put
it out on their social media we put it out in Flyers we' bring it out in every way to make sure that everybody can see this kind of notice and today while this fighting has been going on for four months just like every day we tell the civilians where the safe passages are where they should be going to sorry so that they won't be under attack it doesn't make it any easier it's a horrible War I am very aware of the tens of thousands of people that have died it is a horrible war and in that sense a
s I look at it if the civilians would do what we say it's not about making it easy for them but it's about saving lives and the fact that the international court of justice feels that it has to tell us to do so we know that we need to stay on this moral ground ground we need to know that for our own lives for our own future here we want to be people who feel that we are on that higher moral ground my last question for you here I want to ask about a headline that broke uh really just yesterday he
re but the allegations against the United Nations Agency for Palestinian refugees saying that several employees played a role in the October 7th attacks that is of course an allegation from Israel and the US state department says it is 12 employees at least that are believed to have taken part in the October 7th attacks why is this significant for Israel and why is it significant that the US has now cut off funding as a result the United Nations relief and Welfare Agency for the Palestinian refu
gees unra as it's known by the acronym has been in the Palestinian Arena from the end of the 1948 war of independence for Israel nakba for the Palestinians they are the ones who relief and Welfare agency Education Health they do a lot of different things inside that Arena the bulk of the employees aren't the Palestinians themselves are the refugees themselves Israel for many many years has viewed unra as being an impediment to arriving at a resolution and hand inand with that we know that they a
re the ones that are taking care of needy people but as they are the bulk of the people there are the ones that are hired and work from the Palestinian Arena um Israel transferred information on 12 as you say are the ones that were clear-cut they additional ones that they work for unra they're paid for by this agency they live in the GLE strip and they actively participated in the massacre of October 7th um Israel has been critical of onra for so many years as has the United the United States Ad
ministration and I'll just say that in the aftermath um both unra themselves have put out a a message that they are um saying that these 12 are not allowed to are being fired but around the world we're hearing these voices that understand that at the heart of this kind of an event is education of the younger generation unra is responsible for 85% of the education in the Gaza Strip and you have their teachers and workers and health workers and it's a horrible idea that they are the ones who suppo
rt Hamas and actively participated in that that attack on October 7th all right Mary eyes in retired Colonel with the Israel Defense Forces as always thank you so much for taking the time to join us here a lot of topics covered but is there anything you want to add Before I Let You Go in Israel right now there's a very heavy winter storm and in that sense I'm very aware of the fact that both our soldiers fighting both down south and up north and the gazin in the Gaza STP we are all in a war zone
and I want to remind us all it's not normal in this area challenging in this area but we are going to Prevail so everybody should have a better week than we've had for the last 16 all right Mary Eisen thank you again for taking the time to be here with us thank you
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