Israel-Hamas war: Israeli govt says hostages in Hamas dungeons, war update LiveNOW from FOX

now a bit earlier on this morning we did hear from Israeli government spokesperson Alon Levy I do want to play his comments here marking three months since that attack by Hamas and the start of the war as for the hostages an issue of intense pain and frustration for the Israeli public while we continue to fight to put unrelenting military pressure on Hamas to release the remaining 136 hostages in its Terror dungeons we know that this strategy forced Hamas to agree to the last hostage release pau

se and let go of 110 hostages before it decided to resume hostilities on December 1st tragically that was too late for the eight hostages murdered in the Hamas Terror dungeons whose bodies have since been recovered the 23 hostages whose bodies Hamas is still holding for a ransom and the three hostages erroneously shot by our forces in a tragic incident we will bring to Justice the Hamas rapist regime for the harm that has befallen the hostages we will continue placing unrelenting military pressu

re and exploring every Avenue to rescue and secure the release of the rest and throughout all of this critically we have maintained the support of key allies to defeat Hamas while helping foreign intelligence thwart Hamas Terror attacks in their own countries our allies understand that we are all on the same side especially as the hthy pirate threat rears its ugly head the Allies that stood by our side on October 7 are still firm in their resolve that this war must end with the end of Hamas the

United States has stood Four Square behind us providing us with critical moral material and diplomatic support which they continue to emphasize on a daily basis and the leaders of the UK Australia Canada and New Zealand to name just a few have also made clear that Hamas must lay down its arms and there is no room for Hamas in a post-war Gaza after the October 7 atrocities Washington has made clear on every occasion it will not rest until all the hostages are released and that this war can end to

morrow if Hamas surrenders now and that the United States will continue to provide critical assistance to Israel to ensure that the atrocities of October 7 can never recur I refer you also to the words from the German foreign minister analena bbok visiting Israel just now saying that if Hamas did not fanatically pursue this senseless struggle this war would long have been finished telling Israel you can rely on strongly on our solidarity in the fight against the blind Terror that seeks to wipe I

srael off the map the Free World understands that anything short of a total Israeli Victory after the 10 seven atrocities would leave Hamas free and emboldened to attack again thinking it has the support of the International Community and that anything short of a total Israeli Victory would fuel violent extremism around the world the same sort of violent extremism we have been helping to thwart on the streets of Western capitals we are winning and they are winning betting on the winning horse th

at's it for our update in the assessment and now we'll gladly take your questions thank you okay thank you very much Alon um one one reporter is asking after all of this introduction and after we heard uh defense minister Gan today saying that the not the objectives of the war is going to change but the method so are the goals of eradicating Kamas of uh stopping the missile threat from Gaza we know that we did uh eliminate some of it of the Kamas leadership in the northern part of the of the str

ip is this going to change are the goals are going to change the goals of the war remain the same destroy Hamas release all the hostages and ensure that Gaza can never again be used as a giant Launchpad for attacks against the Israeli people not as it was used on October 7th and not as it was used in the previous uh 20 years of Rocket fire now defense minister Gallant has outlined his guiding principles for the next stages of the War uh he has spoken about those guiding principles that on in pha

se three in Northern Gaza we're going to continue fighting to erode the remaining hot spots of Terror there are still pockets of Hamas fighting forces in there but they are uncoordinated and without an overall superstructure and in the South we will continue focusing on eliminating the Hamas leadership and enabling the return of the hostages um defense minister Gallant has also spoken about phase four the day after Hamas and he's emphasized that there will be no Israeli civilian presence inside

the Gaza Strip the day after the war we have no interest either in occupying or governing the Gaza Strip we think it is right that Gaza be governed by Palestinians and they should govern it in a way that does not give them the means to launch atrocities against our people the defense minister has spoken about the importance of Israel inspecting Goods entering the Gaza Strip we have to make sure that uh neither Hamas which will not exist after this war or other Terror organizations are able to re

arm uh and has spoken of his vision as well of a US LED multinational task force in participation with our European uh allies and Regional Partners taking responsibility for the rehabilitation of the Gaza Strip and making sure that it can be rebuilt in a way that ensures uh sustainable reconstruction without diversion towards terrorism ends you know I visited just yesterday the giant Hamas teror tunnel 400 meters away from the Aras Crossing and you really have to visit it for yourself to underst

and just how much concrete was supposed to go to the houses and hospitals above ground and got poured into the Hamas Terror tunnel all that International Aid money that went straight down the drain down the toilet into the Hamas sewers and Terror tunnels and we hope to work with our International Partners who will be the address for the Reconstruction of the Gaza Strip to make sure that that can never happen again okay thank you uh David Brennan from Newsweek is asking about the Lebanese armed f

orces and we know that the Washington Post and CNN reported several instances in which the IDF targeted them and their position in southern Lebanon does this mean that Israel consided the Lebanese forces a legitimate Target as it seeks to push kizala away from the northern border and to what extent is the Lebanese forces complicit inah's presence along the the frontier specific strategic operational questions I'll refer you to the IDF spokesperson's unit but the political leadership has been cle

ar Hezbollah is dragging Lebanon now into a totally unnecessary War the war that Hamas began it is risking dragging Lebanon into to the sort of ruin that the people of Lebanon do not deserve that we do not deserve the situation in the north is intolerable now with 880,000 Israelis who have been displaced from their homes homes that Hezbollah is shelling relentlessly and we're now at a fork of the roads either Hezbollah backs away or we will push it away either it backs off or it will be pushed a

way there is now a very narrow window of diplomatic opportunity for the world to to secure uh the enforcement of un Security Council resolution 1701 and push Hezbollah away from the border hezbollah's systematic aggression has rendered that Security Council resolution null and void and we need to see Hezbollah pushed away from the border because after October 7th we know that every day that Terror organizations sit along our borders is October 6th and we cannot take the risk of such atrocities r

epeating themselves on Israel's northern border and if hasbalah drag us into a fullscale war and we do not want to fight a war on two fronts we will hold the Lebanese State accountable and the consequences will be severe but we are hopeful there is still time for a diplomatic window to push Hezbollah away that will obviate the need for military force in order to push away this iranian-backed uh proxy that is uh a permanent threat of another October 7th on a much larger scale on the Lebanese bord

er okay thank you Dan Williams from Reuters is asking about the geopolitical front he's asking who will argue on Israel's behalf on the icj hearing this week if if it is going to be mcol Shaw and if so who is the second lawyer and he's also asking about the visit of Secretary of State blinkin tonight and is his shuttle diplomacy productive and what is Israel's message to the US uh Dan on the first question about the icj we have no details at the moment on this legal matter we expect that details

will be forthcoming from the legal team within the next day or two as for secretary blinkin who has visited here many times and expressed Washington's fervent support for our campaign to destroy Hamas in the wake of the 107 Massacre I think secretary blinkin spoke for himself when he said we have an intense focus on preventing this conflict from spreading we are focusing on destroying the October 7 monsters at the moment and ensuring that no such atrocities can ever be perpetrated from Gaza aga

in we do not want the conflict to escalate further we think it is deeply regretable that Hezbollah has entered this war on hamas's side and is dragging Lebanon into a totally unnecessary War the war that Hamas began we hope that the secretary of state will be able to operate within that narrow diplomatic window of opportunity to secure an effective diplomatic resolution to keep Hezbollah away from our northern border stop the ongoing shelling of Israeli homes lift the threat of a repeat October

7th on the Lebanese border and allow 880,000 Israelis to return to their homes because the situation there is intolerable and we hope of course that the war that Hamas began can end with Hamas will not uh escalate further in the United States which has backed us to the hilt uh on Gaza will of course play a critical role in those diplomatic efforts okay uh Tia Goldenberg from AP is asking is Israel concerned that the icj will issue an interim order to stop the War I can't comment anything on the

legal situation uh at the moment uh other than to say repeat our statement that we are abhor that South Africa has chosen to play advocate for the devil that it was Hamas that perpetrated an act of genocide on October 7th and that we hold South Africa to be criminally complicit with the Hamas rapist regime in its decision to provide it political and legal cover okay lizy Porter from the telegraph is asking about the US request or pushing Israel to allow this place residents of Northern Gaza to r

eturn to their homes will Israel allow that and uh what information also do you have about the a corridor with the UK from Jordan uh as for the question about displaced Garin returning uh to their homes we don't have an exact timetable but of course we hope that when this war is over with the eventual and ultimate defeat of Hamas the Gaza Strip will be rebuilt in a way that ensures that concrete goes to people's homes and not into the terror tunnels that Hamas built under the nose es of the Inte

rnational Community and the UN diverting Aid money away from its recipients all in the service of its human shield strategy in order to try to use civilians above ground to protect its assets below ground uh this is still an active war zone we have completely dismantled hamas's military infrastructure in Northern Gaza but we are still encountering Pockets uh of fighting and and that situation is ongoing but we don't have an exact uh timetable uh the second question regarding the land Corridor uh

from uh Jordan somewhat unusual way to say transporting Aid through Israel uh we repeat and this is particularly relevant for the uh AP article that came out the other day unfortunately uh full of a number of erroneous claims Israel has excess capacity to inspect Aid trucks we've more than doubled our capacity and we can more than double the amount of Aid entering uh both through Karam Shalom and inspected at the nitsana Crossing the backlog that the Senators spoke of uh in that article is a ba

cklog after the Israeli inspections there are no limitations on our part on the amount of humanitarian Aid that can enter Gaza we've been exploring various options with our partners for ways to get Aid into Gaza including through Cyprus we hope one day it will be possible to secure a direct passage after inspections in Cyprus I've seen that Aid deliveries have already begun after inspections there going directly uh to Egypt and we continue to allow humanitarian Aid to enter the Gaza Strip after

inspections that we have to conduct to make sure that Hamas isn't able to exploit that to rearm uh and we remain committed to ensuring that humanitarian Aid can reach the civilians in Gaza who need it and make sure that Hamas cannot steal it even though it has been well documented by now with ample photographic video evidence and eyewitness testimonies from Gans on the ground that Hamas has been hijacking a trucks and we think it's regrettable that there is any coverage of the humanitarian situa

tion in the Gaza Strip that does not mention that the day facto authorities in Gaza are hijacking humanitarian Aid in order to prioritize their Fighters and all this with the total complicity of un agencies that are covering up for Hamas and the chorus of Human Rights organizations that are diverting blame onto Israel instead of pointing the finger at the terrorists hijacking a trucks okay thank you um we have a question from Conor Julian from the Jewish press about the situation on the ground a

t the moment at the West Bank we saw several incidents yesterday are we afraid that things are going to heat up there and do the Israeli government see a possibility of another October 7th like coming from these areas in the control of the PA it's clear that when Hamas launched the October 7 atrocities it was hoping to launch a multi-front war that was why it urged Palestinians in the West Bank to take weapons and join in the violence Hamas has for years been trying to escalate this conflict to

Judea and Samaria as well and to inflame tensions over there on October 7th it took it up a notch by encouraging Palestinians to join those atrocities and our goal at the moment is to prevent this conflict from spreading to prevent it from spreading to the northern border and to prevent it from spreading to Judea and Samaria as well and our forces have been taking action there to arrest Terror operatives and prevent uh the widening of the war that Hamas began and is desperately trying to escalat

e in order to draw fire away uh from Gaza where its forces are getting thumped okay thank you uh we had another question coming in about the issue of the day after the war and we heard some uh heads of Clan in Gaza saying that they won't take part in this issue and we know there were some several political difficulties in Israel surrounding this issue do we have anything new about this any conrete plan uh the day after Gaza the Prime Minister has laid out what we're calling the 3D Vision for pea

ce uh in order for there to be peace between Israel and Gaza three things have to happen and we hope to work with the International Community to achieve them destroying Hamas demilitarizing Gaza and der radicalizing Palestinian society and we need the world to get serious about that because if another generation of Palestinian children are brought up in the Child Soldier boot camps that we've been exposing over recent days on a diet of hate and indoctrination in un run schools we will find ourse

lves in a cycle of violence uh again we have to address the root cause of this conflict which is the total blanket refusal of the Palestinian people to accept a Jewish state in any borders whatsoever in the land of Israel and as long as the next generation is brought up to embrace a diet of martydom and Jihad and violent extremism uh we fear we will be condemned to further cycles of violence now as for the question of the distribution of humanitarian Aid our position is that Gaza should be run b

y gazans Gaza should be run by the Palestinians we will not accept the introduction of any foreign element that will Fuel and fund terrorism as opposed to fighting it um we're exploring various mechanisms together with our partners for how the needs of the civilian population should be addressed and I think that actually the extent of the tunnel Network that we've been exposing underneath Gaza the hundreds upon hundreds and hundreds of miles of tunnels have shown that actually in recent Years fi

rst of all Gaza had the resources it needed for extensive building works and two the Palestinian people in Gaza have shown themselves amply capable of conducting very impressive building projects indeed and taking care of their needs it's just a tragedy that they chose to prioritize the October 7 massacres uh instead of sustainable reconstruction inside the Gaza Strip and we hope that the day after Hamas the uh International partners that will be working together with Palestinians uh living insi

de the Gaza Strip will be able to ensure that the Gaza Strip is governed in a way by Palestinians that ensures that Aid reaches the people who need it that homes are built without tunnels underneath children's uh beds that's very important and if that happens then we will be able to turn New Leaf and hopefully Embrace a new feature of peace prosperity and opportunity with the Gaza Strip in the day after Hamas will be able to to look back in these days as one terrible long nightmare okay Aon fore

st from the media line is asking in the same topic what role do the Abraham Accords countries play in that plan if at all uh we think that Regional Partners can play a critical role I'm not going to get into details about precisely who is involved and in what uh format uh but it is clear that we're going to have to work together with the United States European partners and region allies as well the Allies that are interested in peace and Reconciliation and normalization in the region which despi

te this attack by Hamas an Iranian proxy Remains the trend in which the Middle East has been moving in recent years and hopefully the day after Hamas the day after we destroy this Terror organization that let's remember as part of a broader axis that includes the houthi pirate regime Hezbollah in the north the Assad regime the militias in Iraq all these countries that are actively attacking uh the moderate Arab Neighbors in the region as well uh our regional Partners will be able to play a key r

ole in continuing that momentum of stability and normalization in our region okay a Japanese reporter is asking is there any sign of Kamas coming closer to surrendering and how extensive is their ability to continue fighting the IDF at the moment a question on Hamas surrendering on the one hand we're seeing uh Hamas terrorists surrendering in increasing numbers we saw the images of the terrorist surrendering with arms above their heads in the Kamal adwan Hospital we've said we've apprehended at

least 700 Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists many of whom surrendered themselves those fighters who are still on the ground find themselves encircled by IDF forces cut off from the leadership that has abandoned them know they have two options to surrender peacefully or die in battle or Worse to face the Roth of the people of Gaza when they have to give accountability for the ruin they have reigned on Gaza and many of them are choosing to surrender uh but please feel free to speak to me later and

I will refer you to statements by Hamas leaders uh who have made clear their desire to sacrifice civilians and to sacrifice themselves we are dealing with a death cult we are dealing with a Hamas death cult that idolizes martydom and Jihad and does not think in terms of the normal human values that are recognizable to you or me uh so is there any prospect that the Hamas leaders themselves are going to surrender we urge them to do so to surrender and save their skins but otherwise we're going to

continue this war to Target every single Hamas October 7 monster every single terrorist who is planning another October 7th warning them that every Hamas terrorist is a dead man walking okay Barbara diamond is asking what would Israel actually do with members of Hamas if they should actually surrender we've apprehended many Hamas terrorists who have surrendered and they will of course be brought to Justice before a court of law okay Lazar Times of Israel is asking how can confident are you that

the US and other international players can actually help hammer out a diplomatic solution toal's presence over the northern border and if not is war inevitable and how long can we keep up waiting for a diplomatic solution our confidence in diplomatic Solutions is unfortunately weak and that is a lesson borne by experience un Security Council resolution 1701 which ended the 2006 war was never enforced HB never retreated beyond the ly River and it continues to Shell Israeli homes in some cases fr

om meters away from un positions uh treating that resolution as uh nothing more than a wet cloth and treating unifil soldiers as human Shields we think there is a narrow window of diplomatic opportunity to push Hezbollah away to make sure that Hezbollah its Iranian warlord patrons and the people in government of Lebanon understand what an unnecessary War Hezbollah is dragging them into but we are under no Illusions we are preparing for all scenarios and repeat the warning that either Hezbollah b

acks off preferably as part of a diplomatic solution or we will push it away