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00:00go to her now. I want to say also we've had a statement from the French foreign ministry here
00:03in Paris. They've reiterated its strong opposition to Israel's offensive in Rafa. Iris Mackler is our
00:10correspondent in Jerusalem. Hi Iris, let's begin with the operation taking place, this
00:16limited scope operation. What do you understand to be happening? What we know is that Israel has
00:24been dropping leaflets and calling people inside the Gaza Strip whose phone numbers they have
00:29and advising them to leave, saying it's for your own benefit. It's a strong word of advice to leave
00:37and we have also seen footage of people leaving in cars if they have cars, on horses and carts if
00:44they can get their hands on those and getting out of that area. UNRWA, the UN refugee agency,
00:50says it isn't leaving yet. It will try and stay and service the people there for as long as it can
00:57and you know all this follows, all this happens while there are supposedly ongoing ceasefire
01:03discussions. It follows an attack yesterday, a rocket fire from Rafa, actually from Hamas in Rafa
01:10into southern Israel, into the Kerem Shalom border crossing that had, I think what Hamas was
01:16trying to say is that it's still a functioning military organisation. It killed four people,
01:24wounded 10, all of them soldiers, so from their point of view that's a successful military
01:29operation. But as a result of that, the Kerem Shalom crossing was closed, no aid going in from
01:35there this morning, Israeli airstrikes overnight, Hamas-run health authorities say 26 people died
01:42in those airstrikes, 11 of them children. So what had been a scaled down operation definitely looks
01:49like it's being scaled back up. Iris, the other thing to note today is, you know, this is happening
01:55on what would usually be a very sombre day. It's the Remembrance on Holocaust Memorial Day today
02:01in Israel. It began last night. Israelis and the Jewish population around the world holding
02:05remembrance services. I want you to listen to Benjamin Netanyahu using this occasion
02:11to criticise some in the international community, saying it ties
02:14Israel's hands, he said, over its plan to defeat Hamas.
02:24The intention to tie our hands comes from various factors in the international community.
02:30From here, from Jerusalem, on the night of Holocaust Day, I am sending them a clear and
02:35decisive message. You will not tie our hands. Even if Israel is forced to stand alone,
02:41we will stand alone and we will continue to strike our enemies powerfully until victory.
02:51Just interesting with that rhetoric and also just how this is being reported, the news of
02:56this evacuation right now on TV, across media in Israel. You know, it's almost surreal because
03:05ordinarily something of this scope would be covered by all the Israeli media. But today,
03:11what you're seeing is the mainstream media focused on the ceremonies in Israel and ceremonies in
03:19Poland. So we see people marching from the former Nazi death camp of Auschwitz to, they're holding
03:26ceremonies there, they're marching to another section of the camp. And that is the focus of
03:31the coverage. And what you're seeing is a crossover with October the 7th, because there
03:36are Holocaust survivors who are hostages inside Gaza. Not many, but there are a couple. There
03:42were Holocaust survivors who were affected by the events of October the 7th because they lived in
03:47the south of Israel. There are other Holocaust survivors whose grandchildren are hostages in
03:53Gaza. There are yet another group who aren't related at all to the south of Israel. But
03:58seeing those events of that day, seeing children hiding in cupboards, their parents murdered
04:05outside beside them, it just brings up all these memories. So you've got this extraordinary
04:10conflation between Holocaust survivors telling their stories, saying how distressed they were
04:16on October the 7th, and then also adding a political dimension, I guess, like Benjamin
04:20Netanyahu is, and talking about how they don't feel that he's handling this well. They want him
04:26to make a bigger effort to rescue the hostages. And one very old woman, because all the Holocaust
04:32survivors now are old, the youngest are in their 80s and 90s, she said that she was asking her
04:39children to take her out to Jerusalem so she could start a hunger strike outside Benjamin
04:46Netanyahu's residence. I'm used to hunger, she said. It doesn't frighten me. I know that from
04:50my childhood, but I feel I have to do something because she's so distressed about the lack of
04:56progress on releasing the hostages. So it's a very fraught day, and Gaza and what is happening in
05:03Gaza is taking a back seat. Stay with us, Iris. I want to cross 60 kilometres from you, go to
05:08Tel Aviv. I want to bring in Maya Roman.