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Israeli Military: Bodies of Six Hostages Recovered in Gaza. Aired 1-2 am ET

Aired September 01, 2024 - 01:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[01:00:36]

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN Breaking News.

MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN ANCHOR: And more now on the breaking news from Gaza. The Israeli military says it has recovered the bodies of six hostages from an underground tunnel in the Rafah area on Saturday.

The IDF has now formally identified and named all six, and their families have been notified. You can see their photographs there. They are Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Eden Yerushalmi, Carmel Gat, Almog Sarusi, Alexander Lobanov, and Ori Danino.

Obviously, their families are having to deal with this terrible news. Now, the White House put out a statement. I just want to read part of it to you. Quote, "It is as tragic as it is reprehensible. Make no mistake, Hamas leaders will pay for these crimes, and we will keep working around the clock for a deal to secure the release of the remaining hostages."

Now, the news had led to renewed protests in Israel, calling for the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to agree to a ceasefire and hostage deal.

The group, Missing Families Forum, a very active group in these protests, issued a statement saying, quote, "Netanyahu abandoned the hostages." On Saturday, protesters said Netanyahu was putting the war with Hamas ahead of the hostages' lives.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

EYAN KALDERON, PROTESTER: He decided that the Philadelphi access is much more important than from the life of the hostages, and I want to tell him that he's making a war crime. He's a war criminal. He's a mass murder by his decision, and we won't let him do it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: And journalist Elliott Gotkine joins me again from London with more in the very latest on this story. Tell us more about -- I mean, now we have faces, we have names, we have photographs. Tell us more about what we're learning about those killed and now identified?

ELLIOTT GOTKINE, JOURNALIST: Michael, yes. So six hostages whose bodies were recovered on Saturday. As you say, their names and some more details have been provided by The Hostages and Missing Families Forum.

So Hersh Goldberg-Polin, perhaps the best known because he's an Israeli-American and also because we saw on October the 7th during the Hamas-led terrorist attacks, half of his left arm being blown off as he was herded onto the back of a truck. And then he subsequently appeared a few months ago in a Hamas hostage video. So there was, you know, if you like, proof of life of Hersh. There wasn't for all of the hostages.

So he was at the Nova Music Festival, which was taking place right just outside the Gaza Strip and where which was the single -- which was the site of the deadliest rampages of Hamas and others and also where a large number of people were kidnapped. So his family has said that they were devastated. They've been very vocal. They've met with President Biden. They spoke at the Democratic National Convention as well and led the crowd in chants of bring them home.

And as you say, President Biden also putting out a statement announcing that he was devastated and outraged.

Eden Yerushalmi, 24-year-old bartender at the Nova Music Festival. She was on the phone with her family, with her sisters, while she was trying to hide from the militants her last words, which her sisters heard from her, were Shani, her sister's name, "They caught me."

Carmel Gat, a 40-year-old occupational therapist. She was visiting her parents at Kibbutz Be'eri, both of whom were killed on October the 7th. Other hostages were released. What back in November described Carmel Gat, according to the Hostages Forum, as their guardian angel.

Excuse me, Almog Sarusi, he was with his girlfriend at the Nova Music Festival. She was mortally wounded. He stayed behind to try to help her. And then he was subsequently kidnapped, 27-year-old Almog.

Then Alexander Lobanov, a Russian-Israeli, 32 years old. His wife gave birth five months ago while he was in captivity. He never met his baby child.

[01:05:05]

And then we have Ori Danino, a 25-year-old man who reportedly left the Nova Music Festival with it in a car, taking people to safety, and then went back to try to help more people, only to be kidnapped himself.

Those are the names that have been released of the six Israeli hostages whose bodies were discovered on Saturday, and whose names have now been released.

HOLMES: Yeah, obviously, you know, a lot of heartbreak, a lot of sadness for those families. The worst possible news. But there is also, as you've been reporting, there is anger as well. I mean, The Hostage and Missing Families Forum, they called for the public to mobilize. And I know you quoted this earlier, I'll quote it for people. They said, "Starting tomorrow the country will tremble. We call on the public to prepare. We will stop the country."

Give us a sense of what might happen today on the streets of Israel?

GOTKINE: Well, Michael, we only have to go back, what, a year ago or so, to recall that every weekend the streets of Tel Aviv and other cities were thronged with thousands, tens of thousands, sometimes hundreds of thousands of Israelis protesting the government's plans to overhaul the judiciary. We haven't reached that point going back to seeing all of these protests, as we just saw some video of that from Saturday night, and that's been going on -- on a daily basis, but in particular on Saturday evenings, at the end of the Jewish Sabbath that these protests have been taking place.

I suppose if there is going to be a moment, if this movement, if these, you know, Hostages and Missing Families Forum, along with their supporters, who want bringing the hostages back to Israel to be the number one priority, above and beyond the priority of the government's priority of destroying Hamas, I suppose today is the day, Sunday, September the 1st, which is also the first day of school in Israel. That will -- this will be, I suppose, a key test of just how much support they can muster, and if that anger against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government can be harnessed, if you like, into a bigger movement that could, you know, not necessarily jeopardize his government, because so long as he has 64 seats and 120 seat Israeli Knesset, so long as he maintains that majority, he can't be toppled politically, but certainly if, you know, the pressure builds to the extent that it did, you know, it reached its Zenith, the anti-judicial overhaul talks -- sorry, protests, in the wake of Netanyahu sacking his Defense Minister, Yoav Gallant, who had the temerity to call for a pause in the plans to overhaul the judiciary. That was when there was effectively a national strike.

I remember I was actually flying out of Israel that day, and if you recall, I actually did a live report from the airplane as we were trying to take off, and many of the planes were grounded, the airport, everything, and that -- that's what it took to cause Netanyahu and his government to pause their plans for this judicial overhaul.

So I guess today is the day, September the 1st in Israel, as it already is, to see if the amount of protests, if, you know, the number of people out on the streets can, you know, become a movement similar in size and pressure to bring the country to a halt so that the government really will sit up and take notice.

But as I say, you know, and as has been noted by others such as Yaakov Katz before who's been on, you know, thus far, although the protests have been large and roads have been blocked, including the main highway going through Tel Aviv, there have been protests outside Netanyahu's personal private residence in the seaside town of Caesarea, just north of Tel Aviv. They haven't yet prompted the government to change its tacks. So if these protests are going to make a difference, then I suppose today, September the 1st, is the day for that to happen.

HOLMES: Yeah, and what are the potential ramifications for the, quote- unquote, "ceasefire and hostage release talks," which, as you've been reporting and we've been saying, have pretty much gone nowhere, and a lot of people say that's -- even within Israel, say that's a lot to do with Benjamin Netanyahu moving the goalposts is often the case. So what happens to these talks and does this discovery perhaps impact it or not?

GOTKINE: I don't think the discovery of these six Israeli hostages found dead after being kidnapped on October the 7th, I don't think that is necessarily going to affect the negotiations or the discussions. As you say, they seem to be stuck. They've been on and off for the last nine months. They haven't completely broken down. But certainly no matter the optimistic pronouncements from President Biden, Secretary Blinken or others, that, you know, there's just a few more things to resolve, just a few gaps that can be bridged. Most of the work has been done.

[01:10:10]

Despite those pronouncements, these talks still don't seem to be able to get over the line. And we had a stark reminder of that. With this quite mind-boggling report by CNN affiliate Israel Channel 12 and others in the Israeli media, almost transcribing verbatim this supremely angry spat between Prime Minister Netanyahu and his Defense Minister, Yoav Gallant. It's no secret that the two men loathe each other. Or that they have differences of opinion.

But this really seems to have reached boiling point now, with Gallant effectively accusing Netanyahu of killing the hostages because of his insistence of Israel remaining in control of the border between Gaza and Egypt as a red line, if you like, in these ceasefire hostage talks that are being mediated by Qatar and Egypt.

Gallant saying to Netanyahu, effectively, you either get the hostages home or you stay in control of the Philadelphi Corridor because this corridor, this border between Gaza and Egypt, staying in control of that will be a non-starter for Hamas. So you make the decision, you want to stay in control, no deal with Hamas and you're basically leaving these hostages to their fate.

And that was backed up by the head of the IDF, Herzi Halevi, who was also in that meeting saying, look, we can vacate the Philadelphi Corridor, which Israel feels it needs to control to prevent the smuggling of weapons and the like to Hamas from Egypt into the Gaza Strip and then retake it after the initial six week pause of this three phased ceasefire deal that President Biden announced at the end of May.

But Prime Minister Netanyahu feels and certainly in his actions that, no, this has to be the case that Israel remains in control of this border between Gaza and Egypt. He put it to a vote of the cabinet and it was passed 8 to 1. The only dissenting voice being Israel's Defense Minister, Yoav Gallant, who, of course, as I just, you know, reminded you, just last year was sacked and then unsacked because he had the temerity to call for the government to pause its plans for judicial overhaul, which was tearing the country apart.

HOLMES: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Always great analysis from Elliott Gotkine. Thanks so much, Elliott. Appreciate that.

And our breaking news will continue after a quick break.

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[01:16:10]

HOLMES: All right, let's recap our breaking news story out of Israel. The IDF says it has recovered the bodies of six hostages in Gaza. The statement says they were found in the city of Rafah on Saturday and were killed a short while before Israeli troops reached them.

Israel says Hamas is still holding about 100 other hostages. About one-third of them are presumed to be dead. We're now keeping an eye on what will happen in Israel in the coming hours.

A group representing hostage families called on the public to mobilize as they accuse Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of abandoning the hostages and in fact, that group, The Hostage and Missing Families Forum. They said in a statement just in the last few minutes, a deal for the return of the hostages has been on the table for over two months. Were it not for the delays, sabotage and excuses from those whose death we learned about this morning would likely still be alive. A lot of anger.

All right, Paula Hancocks, joins me now live from Abu Dhabi. Now, all of this taking place against the backdrop of efforts to reach some sort of an agreement on a ceasefire deal. Where do those talks stand? How might they be impacted?

PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Michael, as far as we know, those talks were still ongoing, at least at a working level in Doha, Qatar. They had been taking place in Cairo, where we had heard some quite positive noises from the United States. It has to be pointed out, though, that really the Biden administration was the most optimistic publicly and vocally when it came to these talks.

But they said that they were in the talking about the final details and the nuts and bolts of the talk. So potentially giving some hope that a deal was near. But the fact is we have been hearing this for months now.

As you heard from that statement you just mentioned from The Hostage and Missing Families Forum, saying a deal has been on the table since May. Now, this is referring back to the U.S. President Joe Biden having vocally and publicly supported a proposal that was on the table back in May.

We did hear as well that Hamas had agreed to that deal. In fact, the Americans had said that Israel was on board as well. But then there appears to have been different conditions put forward.

Now, the level of blame certainly outside of Israel and in some quarters inside of Israel is pointing at the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. One of the sticking points appears to be the border between Gaza and Egypt, the Philadelphi Corridor. It's an area that Israel wants to keep troops in because they say this is where Hamas and other militant groups have been smuggling weapons in over many years. But it's somewhere that Hamas does not want troops to be. They say that the first phase of this three-phase deal says that Israeli troops must pull out of all heavily populated areas.

So as far as we had heard over recent days, it was really focusing on the Philadelphi Corridor and whether it was considered to be a heavily populated area. So as far as we know, the talks are ongoing.

This certainly puts even more pressure on the Israeli Prime Minister within Israel as well to agree to this deal. Hamas, for its side, has said that it had agreed to it back in July. Of course, these are all public statements. We've had Hamas and Israel blaming the other for these talks not ending in a hostage ceasefire deal, as you might expect.

[01:20:03]

Michael?

HOLMES: Yeah, and Hamas would argue they agreed to the Biden deal, which was presented as an Israeli-originated deal weeks, months ago. And that didn't include the Philadelphi Corridor. And that sort of speaks to the criticism that goalposts keep getting shifted. And Hamas has, you know, changed its own demands as well. But there's a lot of criticism that Benjamin Netanyahu -- even from within Israel that Netanyahu just keeps adding things to the list of non-negotiables?

HANCOCKS: And we are seeing more distance, for example, between the Prime Minister and his Defense Minister. We have seen that there have been disagreements as to the way that this has been planned. There have for months now been calls for, obviously, the hostage ceasefire deal to be done, calls for a day-after plan for Gaza to be presented, neither of which have been done in any meaningful way.

And we've heard from Israeli officials as well that the military can do only so much. You cannot continue to have a military operation or a war in Gaza, which has no end in sight and has no political solution to wrap it up. And so this has really been a criticism that we've heard for some time from the Israeli public and also from officials speaking about the Prime Minister.

Now, the Prime Minister, of course, denies all this. He says that his priority is to get the hostages back. But what we have seen today will only lay more pressure at his door to agree to what has already appears to have been agreed to by Hamas, the United States standing behind this original deal, and also the two key mediators, Egypt and Qatar, have been behind this deal.

Now, we know they have been putting severe pressure on Hamas to come to the table and to agree to those parameters. But as you say, it does appear as though goalposts are being moved, that the conditions are being changed, and just the latest condition that appears to be changed is this Philadelphi Corridor.

Now, we have heard other conditions being changed that have been agreed over recent months, which is why the U.S. says that there has been progress made and they are moving closer to a deal.

For example, at one point, the Israeli troops wanted to be stationed on a very key thoroughfare in the middle of Gaza, so preventing movement between north and south Gaza. They have now agreed not to do that, so that has moved the process forward. But we are still looking at the border between Egypt and Gaza, which is key, the Israeli military says, to preventing Hamas from being able to rearm and being able to smuggle weapons from Egypt back into Gaza to regroup itself after any kind of ceasefire.

HOLMES: All right. Paula, thanks so much. Paula Hancocks there in Abu Dhabi. Yeah, a crucial phase for all of that.

All right, now I'm joined by Israeli Writer and Journalist Yossi Melman. He's also the author of "Every Spy a Prince." He joins me now from Tel Aviv.

It's good to see you, sir. Just tell me, it's 8:30 in the morning there. This news has come. People, the victims here have been named, and there are photographs and faces being put to that name. What is the sense there in Israel at this news?

YOSSI MELMAN, ISRAELI WRITER AND JOURNALIST: Well, the feeling is of frustration and anger across the board. We had known about the death of these six, the rescue or recovery of these six bodies from last night, but we waited for the official announcement, which started coming very early this morning, nearly two hours ago, an hour and a half. And now the families and public figures are calling for mass demonstrations this afternoon.

Israel Time in Tel Aviv in front of the IDF and the Ministry of Defense headquarters in Tel Aviv, and also in front of the government office in Jerusalem. There is a cabinet meeting to be scheduled for this afternoon.

But what is really amazing that U.S. President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken issued statements of sorrow and sending their condolences to the families. The Israeli government is silent. We don't hear a word from Prime Minister Netanyahu. And he sent the military spokesman less than an hour ago just to make a short announcement that indeed six bodies were recovered and brought back to Israel.

[01:25:07]

HOLMES: Yeah.

MELMAN: There is a growing anger in Israel, blaming Netanyahu for that. And just one more sentence to remind the viewers. On Thursday night, the Israeli cabinet added, as demanded by Netanyahu, a new precondition to stay on the Philadelphi axis by the border of Egypt. Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said, if we stayed there, even for the pause during the ceasefire, maybe the hostages will not be returned.

HOLMES: And to that point, because it is really the point, there is so much anger directed at Benjamin Netanyahu, as you say, his own Defense Minister. But there have been senior IDF officers, Shin Bet, Mossad, some of his own negotiators, not to mention the public, angry that a deal has not been done, which might have saved lives. Does -- how -- try to put into -- make us understand the level of anger at Benjamin Netanyahu specifically?

MELMAN: Yes, he is personally blamed for what has been happening since the last swap, which was by the end of November, early December '23. He has set time and again new conditions, which seem to be preconditions because he doesn't want a deal. And the equation is very, very simple. A deal means a ceasefire, in Gaza and in Lebanon. A ceasefire means for him the end of his government.

And because of that, the public is accusing him, opposition leaders are accusing him, that he is -- that he is using his personal -- he's putting his personal interests and preferences before the state interests and before saving lives.

Now, the security chiefs of all of them said, including last Thursday, we can deal from the security dimension, security perspective, with the lack of Israeli presence, IDF presence on the Philadelphi axis, on the Rafah border, for a short period of at least six weeks. But Netanyahu rejected it. And he brought the decision as a precondition to have this presence at the last moment, after midnight.

So it's clear that Netanyahu is trying all in his possibilities to avoid making a decision to release the hostages, because he fears that would be the end of the coalition, the end of his government and new elections.

HOLMES: So do you get the sense that many Israelis believe that, that he is putting his own political survival, the survival of his government, ahead of the lives of hostages? Do a lot of Israelis believe that? Because it's a pretty callous thing.

MELMAN: Yes, it is indeed. And yes, most Israelis believe in it. Public opinion polls, time after time, have shown that at least 50% and above 50% have said that Netanyahu is putting his own personal political interest before the state interest.

It's clear. Sure, Israeli society is highly divided, and Netanyahu still has a solid base. And the coalition of 64 out of 120 members of parliament are behind him. But most of the Israelis believe that he is not up to the job, that he is apathetic to the fate of the hostages because of his personal preferences.

HOLMES: The Hostage and Missing Families Forum said that starting tomorrow, which is today, the country will tremble. We call on the public to prepare. We will stop the country.

Is there, in your mind, a tipping point for Netanyahu? Is there a point where he does not survive politically and there's a change in how this war and these negotiations for hostages is handled? MELMAN: Well, it's hard to say because we have witnessed so many tipping moments, dramatic moments, that from now on everything will change and still we are back in square one. So, I don't know. The number of Israelis who have gathered in the streets in the last weeks has been diminishing, has been reduced.

[01:30:10]

Well, it can be attributed to the summer vacations, to the fact that Israelis traveled abroad despite the difficulties with the airlines which are stopping flights in Israel and outside and out of Israel. So it's hard to say if this is the crucial moment, this is the decisive moment that from now on Israelis will demonstrate in the streets, a million Israelis or more, and that would seal the fate of Netanyahu's government.

The government and the coalition members, the parliamentarians, are still sticking to their chairs because they want to stay in power. Even if there is dissent among some of the cabinet ministers, still, when it comes to the decisive moment, they stand by Netanyahu.

HOLMES: Because apart from the initial prisoner swap early on in this conflict, we're 11 months in, there was a live Israeli Bedouin hostage found pretty much by accident in the past week, but most of the hostages recovered recently have tragically been dead. I mean, some are alleged to have been killed by Israeli bombs, only eight I think it is rescued alive. How angry are Israelis about that? I mean, they want their hostages back, but they want them back alive.

MELMAN: Well, this is exactly the point, that Israeli -- that many Israelis accusing Netanyahu with very harsh words like, blood on your hands, you are a criminal. These are the words that are heard in the streets of Tel Aviv, in the newspapers, on television, by commentators, because on October 7, 250 Israelis were kidnapped. 115 were returned by the end of November, December last year, 40 died in captivity. Some of -- eight of them, as you rightly mentioned, were rescued by daring operations. The rest were murdered by either Hamas or died out of malnutrition and maltreatment.

So the Israeli public is very, very angry, furious, and once again is blaming Netanyahu for all these delaying tactics and setting all these preconditions, because he doesn't want to have a comprehensive deal, and part of that comprehensive deal is to have, as a first stage, to have a swap, prisoner swap. He is controlled by at least two extreme radical, zealot, Masonic ministers, Ben Gvir and Finance Minister Smotrich, and they have been threatening time and again, Prime Minister Netanyahu, that the moment he accepts the deal, a ceasefire, it will be the end of the government. They will leave the government.

HOLMES: Extraordinary. Yossi Melman, thank you so much. Really appreciate you making the time.

MELMAN: Thank you very much.

HOLMES: We'll have much more ahead on the recovery of the bodies of six hostages in Gaza. We'll go back to Elliott Gotkine for the latest developments on this breaking news story shortly.

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[01:37:16]

HOLMES: And we continue to follow the breaking news out of Israel. The Israel Defense Forces say they have located and recovered the bodies of six hostages from an underground tunnel in Rafah in southern Gaza. The IDF says all six were killed, quote, "by the Hamas terrorist organization, and that they were killed a short while before the IDF reached them on Saturday."

Now, a short time ago, the U.S. President Joe Biden acknowledged that one of the hostages killed was an American Israeli citizen. In a statement, he said, quote, "We have now confirmed that one of the hostages killed by these vicious Hamas terrorists was an American citizen, Hersh Goldberg-Polin. I am devastated and outraged. It is as tragic as it is reprehensible. Make no mistake, Hamas leaders will pay for these crimes, and we will keep working around the clock for a deal to secure the release of the remaining hostages."

Journalist Elliott Gotkine has been following all of this from the beginning with us, joins us now with more from London.

I think it is important and instructive to continue to put faces to the names. These were just six bodies found 24 hours ago or less. Now we know who they are.

GOTKINE: We do, Michael, and I suppose the best known being Hersh Goldberg-Polin, not just because he is an Israeli American but because we saw those shocking images of him with half of his left arm blown off, being herded onto the back of a truck and taken into the Gaza Strip on the day of the Hamas-led terrorist attacks on October 7th.

His parents, of course, have been very vocal in trying to push for an agreement that would bring not just their son back but also all of the hostages. They have met with President Biden. They spoke at the Democratic National Convention some 10 days ago and led the crowd in chants of "Bring Them Home." They, of course, put out a statement as well saying how devastated they were in asking for privacy at this time.

There was also a statement from President Biden, as you say. He was saying that he was devastated and outraged. And in the last few minutes, Michael, we have also seen a statement from Israeli President Isaac Herzog saying that the heart of an entire nation is shattered to pieces with the news of the murder of Ori Danino, Carmel Gat, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Alexander Lobanov, Almog Sarusi and Eden Yerushalmi.

And so going back to your original question, Michael, so Hersh Goldberg-Polin, 23-year-old Israeli-American, Eden Yerushalmi, she was working as a bartender, 24 years old. She was on the phone with her sisters while she was trying to seek cover from the Hamas militants as they rampaged through the Nova Music Festival which was taking place just next to the Gaza Strip. Her last words that her sister heard was Shani, her sister's name, they caught me. [01:40:18]

Carmel Gat, 40-year-old, occupational therapist, she was the only one of the six who wasn't taken from the Nova Music Festival. She was kidnapped from Kibbutz Be'eri where she was visiting her parents. Both of whom were murdered by the militants on October 7th. Hostages who had been freed in the first and only ceasefire back in November described her as a guardian angel.

Almog Sarusi, 27-year-old, he was with his girlfriend at the Nova Music Festival. She was mortally wounded. He stayed behind to try to help her only to find himself being kidnapped as well.

Then there was Alexander Lobanov, a 32-year-old Israeli-Russian citizen. His wife gave birth to their second child who is now five months old while he was in captivity so he never got to meet his child.

And then Ori Danino, a 25-year-old who reportedly took a number of festival goers to safety in his car and then turned back around to try to help more people only to become a victim himself and to be kidnapped on October 7th. His body was also found, one of the six that were discovered on Saturday by the IDF.

And as heartbreaking as those deaths will be for the families and Israelis in general, it will perhaps be even harder to swallow for them to know that according to the Israeli Defense Forces Spokesman, Daniel Hagari, that they were killed -- the belief of the IDF is that they were killed just a short while before Israeli soldiers got to where they discovered the bodies and this was anyway about a kilometer away from where the Israeli Bedouin citizen was rescued just a few days ago as well.

The Hostages and Families Forum putting out another statement a short while ago a stinging rebuke of Prime Minister Netanyahu who thus far, so far as we can tell, has not put out any statement, so nothing from the Israeli government so far.

The Hostages Families Forum saying that a deal for the return of the hostages has been on the table for over two months were it not for the delays sabotage and excuses those whose death we learned about this morning would likely still be alive and the Hostages Forum and organizations representing families of those who still have loved ones inside the Gaza Strip calling -- saying that they will make Israel tremble today.

They're calling for mass protests on what is the first day of school for Israeli children to try to take the pressure up to maximum level on the Israeli government and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in particular to come back to the table to do a deal with Hamas that would see the remaining living hostages returned home but of course as we saw just a couple of days ago in a quite startling account by CNN affiliate Israel Channel 12 and other Israeli media outlets about the spat between Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Prime Minister Netanyahu. Gallant wanting Israel to do a deal. Netanyahu insisting Israel remain in control of the border between Israel and Gaza something that is a non-starter for Hamas.

Michael?

HOLMES: Yeah, important information there and important we put faces to those names. Elliott, thanks so much. Elliott Gotkine there for us in London.

And our breaking news coverage continues after a quick break.

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[01:47:34]

HOLMES: Well, the breaking news out of Israel that the IDF has recovered the bodies and identified six hostages in Gaza.

Gideon Levy is a Columnist for Haaretz newspaper. He was an advisor to former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres. He joins me now via Skype from Tel Aviv.

Good to see you, Gideon, as always on a sad day for Israel. Give us a sense of not just the grief, but also the anger in Israel right now as there are these calls for mass protest?

GIDEON LEVY, COLUMNIST, HAARETZ: There is a growing anger, but we should not be mistaken, there is also the camp of Netanyahu supporters who is less shocked, who thinks that Netanyahu did the right choice, namely that the security of Israel in his terms, in his vision, is more important than saving the hostages.

So, a big part of Israelis are shocked and grieving and above all furious because all those hostages could have been saved. Three of them were even on the list that Hamas was ready to release a few weeks ago and Israel said no. So the blood is on Netanyahu's hands, but we should remember that not all Israelis see it like this.

HOLMES: Does this discovery, particularly the fact that these hostages are deceased, they weren't brought back alive, does it add pressure on Netanyahu to agree to a hostage release and ceasefire deal given he's faced a lot of criticism within his own government for, you know, changing Israeli demands and so on. Does this add to that pressure, particularly that these hostages are sadly deceased and not brought back alive?

LEVY: It adds, but it will not be enough, I'm afraid, because basically it's not Netanyahu's political base who protests, who is furious, who is so angry now. And Netanyahu learned to ignore this camp and its demands and until now, the protest, which is quite impressive, but is not big enough and influential enough, did not influence his decisions. And I don't think that now it will, even though it is a growing pressure, sure. Those six bodies are another six bodies which remind us that if we will not be very fast, we will get them only as dead bodies.

[01:50:15] HOLMES: Yeah, yeah. At the same time, I mean, they're being very public spats between Netanyahu and his own Defense Minister, Yoav Gallant. There's been disagreements between Netanyahu and, you know, some in Mossad and Shin Bet and others. And then there are these massive protests by Israelis wanting a deal done.

You make an interesting point, though. We see all this protest against Netanyahu and blaming him in many ways. But what is the level of support for him in Israel? Is he going to be able to, yet again, weather the internal and external pressures on him and survive, yet again, politically?

LEVY: Look, the polls show a very clear picture. His support is growing. It's maybe un-understandable inside Israel and outside Israel, but this is a matter of fact. He's growing and his rivals are decreasing in the polls. This does not mean much because the polls are today and nobody knows when will be the elections, but all the time we have to remember that there is a great part of Israelis who support Netanyahu blindly and automatically and will justify everything and anything he will do or he will not do. They will always find justifications and they will always believe that what he did is the right thing and that he is the real leader who cares for the future of Israel. The other can't accept it obviously and rightly so.

HOLMES: Gideon Levy, it's always good to talk to you. Thanks so much.

LEVY: Thank you.

HOLMES: And we'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[01:55:56]

HOLMES: And our breaking news story out of Israel, the IDF says it has recovered the bodies of those six hostages in Gaza and identified them. The statement says they were found in the city of Rafah on Saturday and were killed a short while before Israeli troops reached them.

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REAR ADM. DANIEL HAGARI, ISRAEL DEFENSE FORCES SPOKESPERSON (through translator): According to the initial assessment at our disposal they were brutally murdered by Hamas terrorists a short while before we reached them. They were abducted alive on the morning of October 7th by the Hamas terror organization.

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HOLMES: Israel says Hamas is still holding about 100 other hostages about one-third of them are presumed to be dead. We're keeping an eye on what will happen in Israel in the coming hours. A group representing hostage families has called on the public to mobilize as they accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of abandoning the hostages. I'm Michael Holmes. Appreciate your company. My friend and colleague Anna Coren continues our breaking news coverage after a break.

I'll see you tomorrow.

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