BREAKING: Israel Launches Massive Counter Assault in Gaza

Breaking news today on Sekulow as Israel launches massive counterattack into Gaza. Keeping you informed and engaged. Now more than ever, this is Sekulow. We want to hear from you. Share and post your comments or call 1-800-684-3110. And now your host, Jordan Sekulow.

Alright, welcome to Sekulow. Folks, we want to take your calls too at 1-800-684-3110 as what has happened in Israel, happened over the weekend here in the United States, depending on how plugged in you've been to the news. I'm sure you've heard about it, but maybe not to the extent. Of course, this is the largest ground invasion of Israel, most Israelis killed in history in one day, since the Holocaust. Just to put that in perspective. Not since the Holocaust have that many Jews been killed in one day. This was not just a rocket attack from the Gaza Strip, something we've gotten used to happening every once in a while, then being shot down by the Iron Dome. Maybe some casualties, maybe unfortunately a few people killed and then things move on. This was a full scale ground invasion by Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, then Hezbollah to the north started firing missiles. They have not yet started a ground invasion, but that could be coming so you could see a multi-front effort coming at the nation of Israel at a time when Israel was caught off guard. There was not preparation, there was not intel. I've been with some top US leaders, no one had this on the radar.

Not even that it was a chance, not even that it was a low level intelligence chance that this could happen. This was, as Jordan said, this was not just some rockets coming in from the Gaza Strip into Ashkelon, Sderot and the portions of Israel bordering Gaza. This was a full scale land, sea and air invasion. There are 800 Israelis killed basically in a day. That, by the way, is the equivalent of 26,000 Americans if you were doing it on a pro-rata basis in one day.

And a lot mostly civilians, some military as well. There are at least 1,100 dead in Israel and Gaza, 2,000 wounded, 9 Americans have been killed, an unknown number of American hostages taken, 2 Mexican nationals, 3 Brazilians, a Nepali student. The British have said that there was initially one confirmed British hostage.

They're now saying it could be as many as 10. So this is obviously, 30 countries could have hostages in this situation. And I want to say this because we have a little bit of a unique perspective on this. Number one, we have an office in Jerusalem. Number two, Jordan and I have been to the International Criminal Court on Israel's behalf on issues just like this.

Because there's going to be a three prong issue here. First is the war. And this is a war and it will probably, the Israelis are saying, will include a ground invasion of Gaza. The hostages will be used as human shields which of course violates international law and the law of armed conflict.

But the terrorists don't apply to any rules. And then third is going to be the geopolitical pressure put on Israel to stop it. We already saw that initially with Antony Blinken, the Secretary of State, sending out a tweet calling for a ceasefire before the Israelis can even respond.

And there we have it on the screen right now. A Turkish foreign minister he spoke to on Hamas's terrorist attack. I encourage Turkey's advocacy for a ceasefire and the release of the hostages held by Hamas immediately. That was then taken down. But I quote tweeted that and my tweet is still up but the tweet below it from Blinken is gone. And I will tell you, I'm not going to name names, but it was bipartisan anger at that tweet. We do have some friends on the other side of the aisle and there was bipartisan anger at a tweet calling that early for Israel to engage in a ceasefire before they had even a chance to respond to, again, the most Jews being killed in a single day since the Holocaust. And then you had the US government with Blinken calling for a ceasefire. Now that has been taken down.

So someone in the Biden administration said this is the wrong policy. We are going to be joined by our colleague Chris Mitchell. He is a senior news analyst from CBN News and a friend of ours and friend of this broadcast.

He is in Jerusalem. We're going to be joined also by Caleb Myers later in the broadcast, a lawyer that we work with in Jerusalem. We're joined by Rick Grinnell, the former Director of National Intelligence and Jeff Balaban who runs our office in Jerusalem.

Folks, we need your help as well. Two days ago we saw the most heinous attack on Israel and it's still ongoing. The issues we fight for span generations, this is now an ACLJ champion and be a champion with Israel. Stand with Israel at ACLJ.org forward slash champions. Welcome back to Seqyil. We are taking your calls to 1-800-684-3110.

That's 1-800-684-3110. As this war broke out, as many Americans were going to sleep on Friday evening, that's when Israelis were waking up to sirens that began on Saturday morning at 6.35 a.m. That was when the first sirens and warning of incoming rockets started. At 7.40 a.m. the IDF confirmed that Hamas fighters, and you haven't seen this in a long time or ever, had crossed from Gaza into southern Israel and asked residents to hide in their home. Sirens went off in Israel at 8.15 and by 8.23 a.m. Hamas had already taken hostages in southern Israel and began killing Israelis. Joining us right now is Chris Mitchell, who is the CBN news chief in Jerusalem.

We share offices with them and he's, of course, a colleague of ours and a friend. Chris, first, we've never seen this and you've been in Israel for many, many years, decades. I've been working in Israel for decades.

We've never seen this. If you go back historically, the 1967 war, the War of Independence in 1948, the Yom Kippur War, which caught Israel off guard, but not like this. What's your sense of what's happening on the ground right now?

You're right, Jay and Jordan, great to be with you. But, yeah, it's unprecedented what happened here in Israel. You know, the carnage is almost unspeakable, almost hard to believe.

It's almost surreal to see the images of dead bodies on a place like Sderot, to see dozens and maybe more cars just littered there in some of the kibbutzes. Sometimes families, whole families being killed really is, as some people are saying, Israel 9-1-1, 50 years to the day after the surprise attack by Arab armies like Egypt and Syria during the Yom Kippur War. This also happened, you know, on a Shabbat. We woke up there here in Jerusalem to those sirens that you mentioned and also the booms of the Iron Dome shooting those rockets out.

Actually, we just heard that in about two hours ago, sirens here. There was, I think, four rockets landed in one place called Abu Ghosh. Oh yeah, Abu Ghosh, yep. Yeah, well, they hit a mosque, believe it or not, and so the fighting is still going on. Well, Abu Ghosh has been a village that's been very pro-Israel since its modern history, so not shocking that they went there, Chris, unfortunately. Yeah, and so 800 or more killed, up to 3,000 injured, and so there's a resolve here, I would say, Jay and Jordan, to really eliminate Hamas as a threat ever again. I think there's a sense in the military echelon, the political echelon, and I think Israelis, they don't want to put up with this anymore. You know, the people down on the southern border have been really calling for this for years because they're the ones that have been receiving the onslaught of rockets in 2008, 9, 12, 14, 21, and they're always living under the shadow of these rocket attacks or this kind of infiltration. Now that it's happened, I think there's a resolve here in Israel to make sure that Hamas is eliminated.

Yeah, I am, and you have, too. I've been there representing Israel's interests at the International Criminal Court. Of course, Hamas doesn't play by any of the rules of international armed conflict because it wouldn't be taking hostages and they wouldn't be attacking civilians. But, Chris, the thing that I think is the most shocking here, and I think, you know, I don't want to point fingers, it's not the time to do it, but it is the most shocking aspect of this, was the intelligence failure here was of biblical proportions. I mean, it was huge, ramifications we still don't know, but the intelligence failure was unbelievable here.

Yeah, it was a colossal intelligence failure. I've asked the IDF spokesman about that, I asked Ambassador Danny Danone about that, you know, how could this happen. They both deferred the question. I think they feel like it's really not the time to find out who's responsible for this and lay blame. They want to instead focus on exactly what Israel needs to do now.

But it's the question among many Israelis. They're confused. How could the IDF let us down and allow this to happen?

So they're confused. Right now there's anger about what happened, not only because of Hamas, but also this failure of intelligence and for the IDF not to protect them. And also the wrenching horrific videos that have come out of kidnapping and slaughtering families. It's really, really shaking Israelis, I think, to the core now. Chris, we're getting reports now that a ground invasion is about to begin. It's like the media looks like Israel is lining up to begin that invasion.

But we've seen it, you've seen it of course time and time again. When those invasions begin, Israel often times has very little time before the world goes into some ceasefire. And they're not able to complete the job and eliminate Hamas. And Hamas is able to rebuild and then they restart this again.

And it seems like every time they rebuild, they're doing something more extreme the next time they strike. We saw Secretary Blinken send out a tweet about a ceasefire that Turkey was going to broker. He actually deleted that tweet because of bipartisan congressional opposition to it. But we know there's going to be that pressure on Israel to enter into a ceasefire. And again, I think that we have to remain, those who support Israel, remain strong. Israel, if they want to do this, this is their chance to go and finish the job. And it sounds like the Israeli people want that to be done.

Yeah, I do, Jordan, think the Israeli people want that done. And you know, I asked Ambassador Danone about that. He made the point. I asked him what is he hearing from many of his colleagues around the world since he was the former Israeli ambassador to the U.N. He's got many friends around the world.

He served there for five years. And he was saying there's overwhelming sympathy right now from the nations and from his colleagues around the world. But he's saying to them, don't forget us in a week or two weeks when the images are going to change, when the perception is going to change, the narrative is going to change. And people start forgetting how this conflict got started in the first place.

Don't forget the images of 800 Israelis murdered, over 100 taken captive into the Gaza Strip. So that's going to be the real, true test of friendship, as he was saying, of Israel's friends around the world, including, maybe most importantly, the United States. Will it stand with Israel? Will it let it complete the job of eliminating this threat on Israel's border? You know, President Biden has ordered the Gerald Ford strike group of the United States Navy to be positioned off of the Suez Canal area and the Mediterranean Sea. And that presence will be significant.

And it carries a wallop. Our Navy is very, very strong. There is another issue, Chris, on this, and that is when I've done these hostage negotiations are tough, but I've never experienced one where there's hundreds of possibly 200 hostages from their saying.

It could be as many as 30 different countries as the country of origin. So we're used to doing it with Gilead Shalit, one Israeli soldier, you know, Said Abedini, one pastor in prison, you know, Andrew Brunson in Turkey. This is at a whole different scale. And at the same time, if Israel does not, if the IDF does not, they may have to take Gaza back over, which nobody wants to do, but they cannot self-govern.

And you cannot have this ever happen again. And the carnage here is of unbelievable proportion. So my question to you, Chris, on the ground is, you've got this unity government they're talking about forming. Is that going to happen here, which at least gives some government stability during this time of crisis?

Yeah, I have heard that maybe a national unity government, maybe as soon as tonight, forming here in Israel, where the opposition party is going to join the coalition government right now. But you're right about this is a conundrum of so many dozens, dozens, maybe as many 200 people that are held hostage there. So they have the conundrum of trying to eliminate Hamas. On the other hand, they have these hostages, Israeli men, women, their wives, their husbands, their children, sometimes as, you know, maybe one year old to maybe an 85 year old woman held hostage. How can Israel and the military and the political echelon deal with the hostages while at the same time trying to eliminate Hamas militarily? Is it going to put these hostages in harm's way?

Are they going to be certainly used as human shields? So this is why it's so important to be supporting Israel right now and certainly praying for them right now. I want to show a photo, because Chris, you mentioned this, of just some of the people who were killed when Hamas invaded, and this is an entire family. That entire family who lived on the kibbutz, they're dead.

All five slaughtered by Hamas. You know, we sent a letter to the United Nations, which of course has more anti-Israel bias than any international body in the world. And in that letter, we called on the UN to take action. We're going to do this for other international entities as well. But Chris, last thing here is the people are in distress in Israel where you're living right now, and we need to be praying for them.

Definitely. They traumatized Jay and Jordan. They need prayer, they need comfort. The scripture that I've been hearing as well is Isaiah chapter 40, comfort, comfort ye my people.

They need the comfort, they need the support. And a good friend of ours, Bishop Robert Stearns of Eagle's Wings Ministry, he was here in our studio just yesterday, and he had a very practical advice. And it wasn't just pray. Certainly pray for what's happening right now. But this has really shaken not only Israelis, but the Jewish communities around the world. And I think we may be starting to see attacks against Jewish businesses and synagogues, but he said if you have a Jewish friend, reach out to them, comfort them, encourage them. If you have a local synagogue, go visit it and show that you stand with Israel.

A very practical way to stand with the Jewish people for such a time as this. Chris, excellent reporting as always. We'll need you throughout the week. Stay safe.

Your family, stay safe as well. Folks, support the work of the ACLJ, our office, ACLJ Jerusalem. We can't do it without you. Be an ACLJ champion. Make that recurring donation at ACLJ.org slash champions. We'll be right back. Welcome back to Sekhil. We're taking your calls.

1-800-684-3110. As you know, ACLJ is broadcast uniquely situated to discuss with you and analyze with you and help you understand what is happening right now in Israel. We've been there during those conflicts before. We have an office in Jerusalem. And of course, so you know, we've represented Israel at international institutions, whether that's the UN or the International Criminal Court.

And today we're trying to bring you as much reporting as possible from experts that are in Israel living it at this moment. So Caleb Myers is a good friend of ours, a lawyer who that we've worked with for many years. And Caleb has uniquely been contacted by families. He himself lives in Jerusalem.

His family does as well. Caleb, the families that are, the hostage situation here is something Israel has never seen in scope. We've seen hostages before.

I've worked on it and I know you have too. Hostage negotiations and releases. One person, two people. But hundreds from, you know, they're saying it could be as many as 200. You're getting news reports now from representing 30 countries. This is unprecedented. Plus you have Israeli families that we know have been hostage.

You've been contacted by those. What's the latest? Yeah, absolutely. This is unprecedented not only in Israel, but internationally. We've never had a situation like this before. It's one of the worst breaches of war crimes and humanitarian international law that we've ever seen. To have armed militants storm civilian neighborhoods and abduct men, women, children, elderly, babies, bring them into the Gaza Strip and put them in tunnels underneath their city. Very, very serious situation. We don't know exactly how many have been abducted.

Like you said, it's probably between 150 to 200. The families have set up an ad hoc committee and has employed or retained the services of various professionals to advocate on their behalf, both within Israel and the international community. I represent an organization called Arise the Alliance to Reinforce Israel's Security and Economy. And we're going to be leading an international campaign mobilizing Christian voices, Christian leaders, Christian advocates, both in social media networks to get out the stories. We're going to be creating a lot of video content, interviews with the families to hear their stories, the stories of their loved ones who are abducted, to keep the pressure and the spotlight on this situation. And we're going to be also demonstrating before and advocating before organizations like the Human Rights Council of the United Nations in Geneva and the International Red Cross.

You know, Caleb, one of the things I'm, there's a number of things I'm very concerned about. One of the things I'm most concerned about right now is, number one, Israel was taken totally off guard here. So you've got the whole security situation and your organization, Arise, deals with Israel's security. So that's one thing that'll be evaluated in the days to come. But in the immediate situation right now, Hamas was able to pull off something that when they make the comparison to 9-11, I think the valid part of that comparison is the sophistication level of what they did.

And the methodical way in which they did it was something that I don't think anybody anticipated. So now you've got these families, we've already notified the UN in a letter, let's put that up on the screen, that we've sent out through our European Center for Law and Justice about what's gone on here. This was to the Secretary General. We're also looking at the IJC and a number of other institutions. But you and I both know, because we've been through this, although not at this scale, that what happens is in a week when Israel is the aggressive entity, because they have to be, to go into Gaza, the world opinion is going to start turning. And we've got to keep a focus here.

What is the plan on that to keep that focus where it should be? That the start of this engagement, this war, was Iran-backed Hamas, and Iran's proxy is Hamas and Hezbollah. And already in the north, Hezbollah is trying to make a couple of moves.

How do we keep that focus, or what are you doing to keep that focus a week from now when things change? Well, thank you for bringing that up, because I think definitely we need to keep the focus on Iran. This is Iran. This is Iran attacking Israel. There's no question Hamas and Hezbollah and the Islamic Jihad are just their proxies in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon. You're absolutely correct about that. And they have more or less a diplomatic immunity.

I mean, right now, the chairman of the Human Rights Council of the United Nations is representative for Iran. It's absolutely abhorrent. And I think that needs to be addressed. The best way that we can continue to keep the momentum, which seems to be favorable towards Israel right now and social networks and media around the world, is just to keep on pumping out the personal stories.

And unfortunately, there's no lack of them. People were butchered. People were massacred. Babies were shot at point blank range in their beds, in their houses. And it was just a complete bloody massacre.

Yes, unfortunately, it did take our security establishment by surprise. There are many reasons for that, which people will be accountable for eventually. But right now, we're just trying to lock arms, work together to move forward and to both neutralize this threat at the defense level, but then also to make sure that these hostages are freed.

I'll tell you this. Neutralization is a word that we use in legal parlance on this stuff. But the fact is they have to be eliminated.

Neutralizing is a nice way of saying they've got to be eliminated. I'm going to take a call, Caleb, because I think you can help on this. Go ahead. Yeah, Robert Collin from Maryland Online One. We are taking your calls.

1-800-684-3110 if you want to join us live on the show. Hey, Robert. Hi, I wanted to know what the strategy is going forward from the Israeli Defense Forces in terms of what they're going to do to they're going to have to annihilate Hamas and Hezbollah in the both of your right. The world opinion is going to turn against Israel when the Israeli Defense Forces absolutely drop a sledgehammer on them. They're going to be all types of cries that the Israelis are engaged in war crimes and you're sitting there saying to yourself, you've got to be kidding me. These are the people that started this whole thing and they've been slaughtering civilians. But this is how the world operates because it's satanic, Jay, to turn against the Jewish people, to turn against the Israeli people.

If they did this to the United States, there would be no change of opinion. Like we're going to see it. But we're going to see that. No, listen, I think, Robert, you hit the, and Caleb is what we've been talking about. You and I have been doing this a long time now. We've known each other a long time.

We've worked on projects together for a long time. We've been through this, not at this scale. No one has been through it at this scale. This is reminiscent of the Yom Kippur War, but different. The world opinion is going to change drastically here. And I think keeping the stories of the hostages out there is a part of how we keep that from happening. But we've got a real battle on this, folks. The public relation and the lawfare side of this will be used.

Caleb? To answer Robert's question, Israel right now is preparing for a ground offensive, which won't be easy. Obviously, that'll cost even more lives of Israeli soldiers. But really, we have no choice but to go in and to eliminate this danger, this threat.

I think it would be overstepping to say we could completely eliminate Hamas because it is an ideology, but we have to completely eliminate their military threat. There's no question about that. Again, as these stories are coming out, as gruesome as they are and as terrible as they are, I think we need to continue sharing them. And people like you, Robert, who really care about this issue, when those things come across your social media feed, share them with your friends. We need to keep the story happening.

And there is no lack of evidence of the gross massacre that took place. Caleb, as you start getting these videos together, get them to us. We will make sure that we put them out. We plan on having you back. I know everybody's jammed right now, but we want to have you back and keep us posted on this because the hostage aspect of this is complicated. Caleb Myers, a good friend of ours, thanks for being with us.

Thank you, Jay. Yeah, I think what you're hearing too, and you see these images of the children, it can be upsetting because they look like your kids, especially if your kids are Jewish or have Jewish blood in them. And you know, these families and you say it, you know, just brutally slaughtered. They didn't have weapons. They weren't fighting back. Just killed because they're Jews.

And again, it didn't matter if they were kids, women, men, soldiers or not, just brutally slaughtered. And this is what Iran backs. This is what Hamas backs. This is what this radical version of Islam backs, and they put it up on social media for you to see.

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ACLJ.org slash champion. We need your support. Keeping you informed and engaged. Now more than ever, this is Sekulow. And now your host, Jordan Sekulow. Shortly after Christmas, it was 2008, we arrived in Israel. We were working actually on a release of a family being held hostage in the Gaza Strip whose husband had been killed. He was the head of the Palestinian Bible Society in the Gaza Strip, and they needed to be moved just to the West Bank. We needed Israel's help in securing a Gaza border entry that would open up and allow them to leave Gaza and then get into the West Bank to meet up with their family. When we landed in Israel, to complicate those matters, a war had broken out. And there was a question of, again, would that hostage get out?

Would the family be able to get out? The war breaking out. The rockets coming down. And we said, you know, we're here.

We need to go to those communities and see what it's like. Now, this was, again, in 2008 when these rockets were much less deadly. Hamas was not nearly as well funded as they are now. There was not a ground invasion at that point, but we did experience what it was like to be on these border cities. This was back in 2008, so it was a long time ago. But to feel it firsthand, and this, again, on not even close to a scale of what Israelis are dealing with right now, the seriousness of that moment. And we can actually show it to you.

We filmed it. You may have seen this before a long time ago, but here it is again. We're in a community here.

It's a residential neighborhood. And I asked Colonel Gieson this on the way in. These people are living under very difficult circumstances.

I mean, literally, folks, if you see right behind me, you see the smoke billowing out from about four different locations right now. My dad and another guy, they had gone in to meet with the President of Israel. But just like in the United States, not everyone gets to run into these rooms. This is highly secure, even during this situation. They can't let everyone in.

We understand that. Mr. President, it's Jay Sekulow with the American Center for Law and Justice. Here's the President of Israel, 84 years old, surrounded by children, and he's talking right to the world through us, which was pretty amazing to see. So we actually stayed in the van, and one of our security guys, he just tried to turn around and said, listen, a siren's going to go off while we're here. They've been going off all day. When this happens, you have 15 seconds, we'll go to that building. It's about 500 yards away.

It's not that close. Literally two minutes after he said that to us, you hear the siren. Right now you hear overhead the siren that's going on right now, indicating that a rocket has been launched from Gaza and at least going towards this area.

Now that siren gives the individual citizens here about 14 or 15 seconds to get into a shelter. We're in one right now with the Strategic Command Center, but that's what you're hearing, that noise outside that you're hearing is in fact the siren. Then you see me in the background, and when I point up after the siren, that's when the rocket hit. I remember I just started filming, and this siren went off, and I think I was in the middle of a sentence where I said, as you hear above me the rocket, and I stopped for a second, realizing, wait a minute, that siren went off, and that rocket's aiming this way. We're not in a bomb shelter. We're in this building, but if the bomb went through it and hit, you'd be killed by the shrapnel.

I don't remember if I paused. Our energy level and our adrenaline was very high at that point. One had already fallen. We were seeing this kind of multiple barrages, and then they showed me this map that had all of these marks where the rockets had hit. So, folks, when we're talking about this, we talk about it from firsthand experience. Jordan and I have been there when it's happening. That was the former President of Israel, former Prime Minister of Israel, the late Shimon Peres, who we were close with and worked with. He was called the President for Peace, but they've done it again at a scale much larger than what we experienced.

I will tell you something that was horrifying if you were there, and now, as Jordan said, it's at a totally different level. All right, we'll take your calls at 800-684-3110. We encourage you to support the work of the ACLJ. Now more than ever, you're not kidding. Do we need ACLJ champions? Yep, those are people that stand with us each and every month. We want you to be a champion for Israel, stand with Israel, be a champion of life, liberty, and freedom here in the United States and in Israel, as we go to international tribunals to defend Israel, which we are preparing as soon as we're off the broadcast. Go to ACLJ.org forward slash champions, folks.

Become a monthly donor. That's how we're able to do it as we increase our capabilities. ACLJ.org forward slash champions. Welcome back to Sekulow. Rick Grenell is the Senior Advisor to the ACLJ, a former Ambassador to Germany and Acting Director of National Intelligence. Rick, great to have you on such, again, this important time right now as the world prepares to respond. We're seeing responses be removed from Twitter, so even initial responses from the United States changing as we speak, as we're on air. So it's a very volatile situation, both diplomatically and then on the ground in Israel. But it's also something that we have not seen on this scale that Israel has faced.

No, never. And certainly not since the early days of the Jewish state of Israel in modern times. More Jews killed on this, on one day in Israel. The last time that happened was the Holocaust. And there's 50, this was the 50th anniversary.

Hamas always picks, and these Islamic groups always pick dates with significance. It was Shabbos, Sabbath, so Israel's, you know, pretty quiet. And it was 50 years to the day of the Yom Kippur War in 1973 where Israel was caught off guard.

And they abled by God's grace to win that war. That became very close. Rick, your reaction to all this up front? I mean, it's just horrific. I never thought that I would see this.

I'm stunned that this is happening. We talk about intelligence failure, which is one of the areas that I like to focus on. And certainly there'll be time to look at what type of raw intelligence did we have?

What did the analysts say? Did we share it? Did the United States share it? If they knew, former CIA director Mike Morell is out on Twitter today saying that this is definitely not an intelligence failure from the United States because the attacks were in Israel.

And that is implying that somehow we wouldn't share even if we knew. And I think that's a very troubling statement from a man who also signed the letter with 50 other intelligence officials saying Hunter Biden's laptop was Russian disinformation and we shouldn't look at it. So there's some troubling information coming out. Certainly we look at the horrific videos that are still happening inside Israel. And all I can say is that every single person listening to this broadcast needs to be praying for peace in Israel. You know, Jordan and I were there during Cast Lead in 2008-2009 with rockets falling and we were working on extricating a Christian family from Gaza whose husband, Rami Eyad, was the director of the Palestinian Bible Society and was stabbed 45 times in broad daylight by Hamas in Gaza. We were there to get him out and the war broke out as we were flying over and we still went in there in Israel, by the way, got that family out. This is a very complicated procedure though, Rick, because it's one thing to do air attack. I mean, Jordan and I watched the Black Hawk helicopters hovering over Gaza, shooting the missiles in on the extradition of this family.

The problem here is you've got upwards. No one knows the exact number yet, but it looks like it could be in excess of 200 hostages, maybe representing 30 countries of origin that have been taken. And Israel is going to have to do a ground incursion here. You are the director of national intelligence. I don't want to start, like you said, this isn't the day and we may, by the end of the week, maybe it is, you start looking at that. But right now, today's not the day to look at the intelligence failure, which was massive here, obviously. But from a diplomatic standpoint also, the pressure on Israel, you know what's going to happen. In 36 hours, Israel will mount a significant campaign inside of Gaza and you know what's going to happen with world opinion. You just know it.

You could predict it now. And while they're showing pictures of the Mogan David, the Star of David and the Israeli flag on the Eiffel Tower and on 10 Downing Street, and governments are coming out saying how horrific this is, you know where this is going in three or four days. Well, we know this because we've seen it. I spent eight years at the UN and watched how this immediately becomes a support for Israel, but it dissolves very fast into don't do anything to the people who did this. And so it puts Israel in a terrible situation because you want to say never again and you want to react and get the people who actually did this. But when you try to go in and do a good job, a thorough job of moving on the ground and trying to get the individuals, trying to separate the innocent civilians from the ones who actually did it, it takes time. And it's messy. And if we're going to require Israel to do that painstakingly slow process, then we've got to give them the time that they need.

Look, this is messy. It's not going to be easy, but you're exactly right. We need to stand right now with Israel. I just always think, what would we do in the United States if all of a sudden rockets were launched from Mexico or Canada? We would be very thorough in trying to get it.

Yep. You mentioned the United Nations, just so everyone knows, this morning at about 8.30, we sent a letter to the Secretary General of the UN about the barbarous attacks on Israel by Hamas and its allies. By the way, this is all Iran backed.

I mean, you could do studies on it, but it's Iran backed. And we've started that process. We've got calls coming in, Rick.

I think taking a couple of those would be helpful. If you want to talk to us, by the way, 1-800-684-3110. Let's go to Michael in New Hampshire on Line 1. Hey, Michael, welcome to Sekulowpe.

Good afternoon, gentlemen. You talked again earlier about lawfare, and that's a big trigger for me. But I really want to emphasize, this isn't just lawfare. This is hybrid warfare.

This is three warfare, Chinese style. And I'm not trying to tell you how to do your job, but you've got to think in those three terms, three dimensionally, when you're developing a strategy. And that's what has to be done. You've got to develop a strategy. You just can't be reacting to it.

Think law, psychological, media, and how those intermingle, what's being emphasized most, and counter it and develop a strategy to preempt it. That's 100% correct. And I think you've got to think nine dimensionally. Three dimensional doesn't work here.

This is nine dimensional chess. And you mentioned the lawfare part of it. We're on top of that right now, the media part of it. That's why we're doing this today. And I'm going to be on Sean Hannity's radio broadcast. We're going to be, our media is going to be doing this. We just had Caleb Myers on from Israel. He's working with a number of the hostage families.

We're going to have fresh video on those, probably on a daily basis. And then of course the psychological, listen, psychologically, Rick, this is devastating for Israelis because they have not, even in 48 where the war was anticipated when the declaration of independence was declared for Israel and recognized by the UN. Then in 67, again, not a surprise attack there, but a war lasted six days. Israel reclaimed the Holy land of Jerusalem, the Holy spot of Jerusalem. And then in 73, Israel caught totally off guard during the Yom Kippur war, almost devastated miraculously and a God miracle that Israel survived that. But yet even there, when they got 60 miles away from Ammon, the world said, stop.

And this is, the caller's right. It's psychological, it's media and it's lawfare. And the diplomacy aspect, Rick, talk about that, the diplomatic aspect of this right now. Well, first of all, I just want to highlight, I was on the phone this morning with a friend who is in Jerusalem and he had to abruptly get off the phone because of the sirens.

And he had to go down inside a bomb shelter. So the emotional aspect right now is very real, even inside Jerusalem. Look, I think it's really important to pay to play nine dimensional chess, to have a diplomatic surge, all of these issues. But you know what we really need is we need leaders who understand that they have to be courageous and have resolve. You are not going to get the media to ever applaud what Israel is doing. You have to have leaders that understand that this needs to be done.

And you can do all of these other things to try to minimize and mitigate. But you cannot worry about what the media and the loud vocal few are going to say. I firmly believe that the majority of the world is with Israel. They may not be vocal about it, but the silent people are absolutely with Israel and the Israeli leadership and the American leadership need to understand that they have the majority of people, they may not have the majority of voices. Rick, we saw even in the streets pretty shocking protests here in the United States, pro-Palestinian protests in the United States, all over the country, and people worrying that this could inspire attacks here even in the United States against Jewish facilities or facilities organizations that are known to support Israel.

I mean that's a real issue that Americans are thinking about right now. It's a daily issue for Israelis. I think there's a lot of people in America, pro-Israel individuals who are distraught about what they're seeing.

They can't stop praying. I know on Sunday all of the churches that I've been involved with in my life, I either saw online or heard from people that were saying today was a total prayer day for Israel. I hope that the Israelis know just how much the Americans stand with them. My evangelical Christian mother cannot stop watching and thinking about the people of Israel. She's got a big plaque right in her kitchen, pray for the peace of Israel. She's warning everybody in her life to think about what's happening in Israel and to look at what the Bible says about the end times.

This is a very scary moment for many Christians in America, but I do know that they stand with Israel. I believe that too. Thanks, Rick. Appreciate it as always. I'm sure we're going to have you back on often this week.

Folks, we're taking a break. When we come back, we'll take your calls at 800-684-3110. Jeff Balaban, who is our director of our office in Jerusalem, will be on with us.

He was in the United States for the Jewish High Holidays. I will have his perspective and some of the need that's going on right now. But listen, folks, support the work of the ACLJ now more than ever. Yes, champions we need.

Unbelievable. Stand with Israel. Be a champion of life, liberty, and freedom. And stand with Israel by becoming a monthly donor at ACLJ.org forward slash champions. Welcome back to Secchia. We are taking your phone calls to 1-800-684-3110.

That's 1-800-684-3110. Getting you up to speed on everything that's happened in Israel since the attack began at 6.35 a.m. The first sirens started going off in Israel on Saturday morning.

So you may have gotten alerts even on Friday evening, depending on where you live in the United States. And then, of course, a ground invasion by Hamas, something we had not seen before in history. So it was not just rocket fire. Then the killing of civilians, children being taken hostage, women being taken hostage, dragged through the streets. Much more ISIS-style looking video than even Hamas had ever put out before.

So really disturbing imagery. We've showed some that we can show on the air. And what we have to realize now is that Israel is preparing its full-on response. And what we know is that when Israel responds, quickly people will forget about those images and they will start saying, oh, Israel is overly responding here and there needs to be a ceasefire, which our secretary of state put out, and then deleted a tweet.

You don't see that very often. I mean, so there is a lot going on behind the scenes here and some even publicly, you don't usually see public diplomacy with tweets being deleted by secretaries of states on issues this important. He actually issued a statement of support on 10 Downing Street, they had the Israeli flag thing, but he said this, we support Israel's right to respond, quote, proportionally. Okay, that's legal speak.

Okay, you know what proportionality is? That's a concept that we deal with at the International Criminal Court is how does a government respond to an attack proportionally? You know what that would mean, Mr. Prime Minister of England? Going into Gaza and going into civilian houses and killing their families. Okay, so Israel's not doing that, but that's going to be the world reaction to this.

So our world leaders need to watch their language because language and speech has consequences. Folks, I'm going to show you right now on the screen, we're going to get Jeff Balaban here in a moment too. These cufflinks that we had done are a reminder to us, and Jordan and I are both wearing them today, of Operation Cast Lead. We were there when the rockets were falling on Sderot and Ashkelon. We were in with the prime minister when that was happening in a command center.

And you see those little flecks of silver in those cufflinks? You know what that is? Mortar that literally landed a rocket, landed what, about 40 yards from you, Jordan? Not even? Yeah. So we've been there.

We know what this is like, but folks, this is at a scale we have never seen. Jeff Balaban, who runs our office in Jerusalem, is in the United States for the Jewish High Holidays, of course. Hamas attacks on the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War. They attack on a holiday because they do these as points of significance. Nothing they do is by accident, Jeff.

Nothing they do is by accident. They attacked on a day that is considered the happiest day of the Jewish calendar. After Yom Kippur, after judgment and repentance, we just go out and rejoice. And we have tabernacles where we actually pray for the well-being of every nation in the world with total disregard to how they treat us.

And then the final day, it's just rejoicing. And on that day, they chose to do what I'm going to say is a Holocaust-level event. We've never seen anything like this. The images are being withheld because Israel doesn't even want the images to get out there because of their own notions of what's appropriate for their own citizens to see. No, what we've seen has been horrific. You can imagine what we haven't seen.

That's right. The images are beyond horrific and the worst things are being withheld. You know, my view is, and I know it's true that people who support ACLJ, so many pray for Israel, care for Israel, want to support Israel. My view is we're at the point now where if anyone in the world doesn't understand that this is pure evil versus good, then honestly, ignore them. Israel doesn't owe explanations to anybody.

The Jews owe explanations to nobody. I'm sorry, it's very hard for me not to get emotional. We found out about this during the holiday, but it was all rumors. And then we came online after the holiday last night to hear stories of people we know, friends, family members. And the thing is, as you know, Jay, the Jewish people, we're a family. We have a religion, but that's not what we are. We're a family and our family is being slaughtered before our eyes. And the world is trying to make equivalences. And the world is trying to, as you've been saying, they're going to call for proportionality. There is no proportionality here. No, that's absurd.

It's impossible. These are genocidal animals. No, listen, Jeff, when, I mean, I appreciated Great Britain showing the flag of Israel on 10 Downing Street.

I appreciated the imagery. But then when you, we read what they're saying though, folks. And when they start saying proportionality, believe me, there are a couple of lawyers that you're talking to right now, three, that know this very well because we know the ICC because unlike any other lawyers in the United States, we've actually been there. Okay? And when you start saying proportionality, it's, first of all, what an absurd statement.

Proportionality with this? Israel would never do that. Israel doesn't commit war crimes. It's insanity, Jay.

It's insanity. And they're already teeing up, well, let's count the number of dead here versus Gaza. Every drop of blood, Jew and Arab, belongs on the head of the Gazans. By the way, it's not just the Gazans. The Iranians. There are mosques throughout Israel that are calling to kill the Jews. Yeah, but it's the, listen, let me tell you who's responsible for this, folks.

Okay? It is the unholy alliance we talked about a long time ago. It is, it's Iran, it's Russia, and it's the jihadists. And unfortunately, I believe there's going to be Russian involvement here. I hate to say it, but already reports we're getting is that there may be on the intelligence level side of this.

We don't know that for a fact yet, but there are reports coming. So all of this is just- There is an important role- Excuse me? There is an important role for America to play. America needs to reassert itself as a leader, both diplomatically, morally, but also in terms of strength, because every red line has been eradicated. And we must, we must stand with Israel and allow Israel to do anything and everything it needs without limitation. The United States Navy, per the President's order, has moved the General Ford Strike Force Group, which is a very powerful naval flotilla. I mean, it's a huge power. And they are being moved to the border, well, to the Mediterranean Sea and the Suez Canal region as we speak.

It'll take a day or two to get there, but they're on their way. But this thing could- This is Iran back. We know this. Yeah, it is Iran back. But you know, Jordan, the thing that we also know is this has a potential of being a geopolitical nightmare, it already is, because you've got it possible that 30 countries have hostages. So we're talking about hostages, we're talking about usually one or two. We're talking about possibly 200 or military. POWs, but yeah.

200 from 30 countries. So the interplay pressure here is going to be, and they're being held in Gaza, and they're probably going to be used as human shields. Various terror groups who don't always communicate clearly, who have kind of this not clear structured leadership.

You've got other groups like Hamas and you have Palestinian Islamic Jihad. So when Israel goes in, I just want you to know, it's not going to be pretty there either. I want to take Julie's call, because she's been on hold for a long time. Julie, go ahead.

Hi, Jay and Jordan. If I recall, in 2005, Israel forced all its settlers, they dragged them out of their homes in Gaza Strip. And the whole reason was land for peace. Since we have been given no peace, can we take that land back? This is a decision the Israeli government and the Israeli military has to make. They've got to, number one, assess whether they have the capacity to do it. Can they actually do it? Do they have the military capacity to take back this landmass?

And number two, what is going to be the international ramifications of all that? But yes, the pullout did not work, unfortunately. I didn't think it was going to work when they did it, I don't see it. Now, Jeff, in ten seconds, your assessment on that?

No, the pullout didn't work. And if anything, it tells you why Israel can never leave Judea and Samaria, why Israel needs to assert its authority throughout all the territories it controls. Because that would be a nightmare a hundred times this nightmare. Let me always remind people that when the Palestinians had an opportunity to vote in the Gaza Strip, they voted to put Hamas in power in an election that the UN said was free and fair. So they can't say, oh, it's just Hamas. They voted a terrorist group to be their leader. You have to pay the consequence for that if you vote for that. And that's what they should be paying the consequence for after this attack. Support the work of the ACLJ. Be an ACLJ champion with your recurring donation at ACLJ.org slash champions. We'll have more tomorrow.