Its on again. More shelling in gaza. The Israeli Defense forces saying theyre expanding Ground Operations as we speak. Is this the start of a ground water . Welcome. Im neil cavuto on a very busy day and now night. Its about 11 00 p. M. In israel as we speak. Lets go to trey yingst in southern israel. Trey . Good afternoon, neil. As we speak, the real military is shelling and striking the gaza strip the past several hours. They have ramped up strikes on the northern part of gaza. This is the heaviest that we have seen the israeli response since this war erupted 21 days ago. Weve seen the israelis using tanks along the border. According to israels spokesman, this is being considered you can hear the artillery going out there in to gaza, this is being considered an expanded raid in to the strip. Theyre stopping short of calling this the Ground Operation that everyone is anticipating. But the amount of fighting along the border is significant. Weve heard Machine Gun Fire in the distance. Earlier today, Short Range Rockets Fire from the factions inside gaza. Sirens sounding at this location, sending people to bomb shelters and earlier in the day before that, sirens sounding in the city of tel aviv. It gives you a sense that 21 days in to this conflict, the factions are maintaining their ability to fire rockets. The israelis are entering the second phase of the war, striking more significant targets across gaza. As we speak, we understand theres israelis inside the strip conducts this limited but expanded ground raid. Neil . Neil trey, weve heard reports of a near total black youd of the internet in some of these areas that might be affected. Do we know anything more of that . Yeah, we do. According to our sources inside gaza, all of this palestinian cell towers are down. They use a network called jawal. While the israelis use a few different networks, but the large one is called cell com. The reason i can talk with this source, he has an american phone. A u. S. Sim picking up the israeli cell phone. Theres Limit Information coming out inside gaza. I want to tell you what hes telling me. He says unfortunately no connection to know whats going on in other parts of the strip but we heard heavy air strikes, nonstop. He goes on to say the sound is very big and people are scared. Gaza tonight is alone. Thats what the source says. Then went on to explain that theyve tried to reach out to people in gaza city and have gotten no response. He was able to get through to someone that drives an ambulance and says it is a chaotic scene. Theyre continuing to try and provide service, but are unable to because of the lack of communication. So it gives you a little bit of insight of what life is like for the two million palestinians inside the strip. This Sun Precedented in terms of the israeli response. A new phase of the war is developing before our eyes tonight. Neil . Neil be safe, trey. Thanks very much. To mike tobin in southern israel, from what hes hearing from that end. Mike . Well, neil, the cannons are increasing their intensity as they fire in to the gaza strip. We hear the air strikes going with a roar and a crack. At that same time, the palestinians are firing the rockets out of the gaza strip. I got a bunch of inbound rockets there. Getting intercepted. Were inside the shelter. The light isnt very good. Activity has increased, picked up along the gaza strip. Our camera caught one of the rockets going out. I call them long range rocket because they have the ability to reach to tel aviv. Earlier in the day, one of the rockets got through israels defenses and hit an ant building in tel aviv respected in three people injured. Back to gaza strip. My contacts in gaza say the air strikes are covering the whole of the gaza strip as israel has now expanded the operation. We have reports of conflicts with the israeli armor that has rolled inside of the terrain of the gaza strip. You just heard a big boom in the bock ground. Communications are down. The World Health Organization says they have lost contact with their staff there. Neil . Neil mike, i have to wonder and i try to get a feel of the folks you encounter as youre dealing with Something Like this. This has been grounding on for the better part of three weeks, almost a month. How are they just putting up with this . It depends where you go. If you come to a town like stderot, a lot of people have left. They have gone to tel aviv where theyre staying in hotels or friends. You have the people that have dug in their heels. They have put up with the rocket fire more than 1 1 2 decades now. Theyre defiantly staying. People say theyre staying and they need feed and he will feed them. Theyre frazzled, but defiant nonetheless. Martha as i said to trey and you hear it because we care, be safe. Mike tobin in the middle of all of that reporting calmly and cooley each day every day, all of them. Remarkable. I want to go to Jennifer Griffin at the pentagon right now. This were different attacks on u. S. Soldiers. I believe this is around the 20th weve seen in just the last couple weeks. Jennifer what can you tell us . Well, neil, as the middle east stands on the precipice of a massive Ground Invasion that were told could last months and trigger a reaction from hezbollah in the north and other iranian proxies that will try to test the u. S. Military across the region, tying the u. S. Back down in the middle east. Its important to look at who benefits right now from the actions of iran and hamas. Its not the palestinians, its not tehran. Someone that were no longer talking about every hour on the news. Russian president vladimir putin. Its no co indense that tom hamas leaders including its founder made their way for meetings with Putin In Moscow yesterday. Putins forces in ukraine are experiencing heavy losses so much so that moscow has had to rely on iranian drones for any success on the battlefield. We reported that a pair of f16s had responded to ten days of attacks on u. S. Bases in iraq and syria bombing two iranian Proxy Facilities in Southeastern Syria near the town on the border with iraq. One an irgc Weapons Depot and one an ammunitions story site. A senior u. S. Defense official said there were no casualties at one site. Theyre still assessing damage at the other. The pentagon went out of its way to make sure Iranian Forces were not at the facilities that they targeted, this target was about as low on the Escalation Ladder as one could get designed to send a message to iran not to continue testing u. S. Resolve by expanding the conflict. Its not clear that they got the message. Iranian proxies launched a drone at u. S. Forces in iraq today at alassad air force because. It was intercepted. It was the 20th attack on u. S. Bases and the first since last night. Theres 900 u. S. Troops in syria tonight at small bases, neil, part of the antiisis mission preventing about 50,000 isis affiliated men, women and children currently being guarded at the refugee camp in syria from being released giving isis a fresh start in the middle east. Those u. S. Troops are in harms way tonight, part of this iran proxy war. Neil . Neil just to be clear, you can help me with this, jennifer, these attacks focused on syria for the time being. The u. S. Air strikes focused on syria. One of the reasons for that im told is that the u. S. Does not want to destabilize the government in iraq. If the u. S. Starts carrying out air strikes in iraq, that government could fall and then you could see a return to a crescent from iran to lebanon. Thats something that the u. S. Is very cognizant of, even though most of the attacks on u. S. Forces have been inside iraq, neil. Neil got it, jennifer. Great reporting as always. Want to go to Brigadier General rob spalding right now. His take on all of this war without rules is his latest. Makes you think about where we stand now. General, let me ask you about these attacks on u. S. Soldiers, beefing up the number of boots on the ground. 900 more troops. Now this does appear to be very much an escalating conflict. You think it stays that way or it could be contained . Well, i guess as long as were not going after who is starting it, which is really iran. I cannot believe that we think were going to deter iran by Hitting Proxies in syria. Theyre just going to continue to further up the ante. You know, if you go back to when we bombed general soleimani, they got the message really fast. So youre going to have to go after iran if you want to deescalate the situation. You cant basically expect that they really care about you hitting their proxies. Neil we seem to care about hitting iran directly. I can understand some of the concerns. But israel is clearly agitated to the point of wanting to take action itself against iran. How likely is that . Well, probably very likely if this continues. I think i would not blame them. Quit frankly, i can not fathom why we wouldnt go after iran, particularly as a message to say stop. The only way youll give them that message is if you threaten directly the iranian leadership. They will not respond to this type of proxy attack. This is going to be a useless effort that doesnt really stop them, you know. Again, go back to general soleimani. They got the message right away and deescalated. So if you want to deescalate, you have to go after the leadership in a real way. Make them feel threatened. Neil let me ask you, its an ancillary issue but one i wanted to raise with you. A lot of federal government officials here in this country are talking about crypto firms not helping terrorists out. That there must be more financial transparency. Theyre looking at funding for terrorist groups, we know this hamas Attack On October 7th was largely financed through untraceable crypto funds. What do you make of that and what we can do to stop that, if we can stop that. Well, im just going to go ahead and say and people are going to be happy of this. Im not a fan of crypto in terms of national sovereignty. The only one that should be coining currency is the federal governments, how we maintain our federal republic. I understand the novelty or the other nature of using a distributed currency. But ultimately its going to be used by people that want to keep off the radar, which means its going to facilitate terrorism and criminal behavior. Neil general, do you think hamas appreciated the magnitude of the response theyre seeing now, the response on the part of israel, our actions against the surrogates, saudi arabia knocking down the Houthi Rebels missile coming from yemen. Theres distinct and different, i grant you. It does make you wonder about the wisdom of their strategy unless they were envisioning this would create a global jihad. You know, khamenei thought that was something that would happen after 911 and it did not. Im wondering what you make of it. Ill take you back to the beginning of your broadcast when you talked about who is benefitting from this. Thats putin. Through their relationship, so is china. So this is part of a broader it. Its the second cold war. This is expanding. It will expand in to asia next and the idea here is to overwhelm and bankrupt the United States. The same as we eventually did to the soviet union. Weve been taking a very brad approach to this. Quite frankly we need to reassess, understand that Global Situation and prepare for a long fight. Neil general a lot has been said and second guessed about the wisdom of hamas and what the upside could be to the butchery. The audacity of it. And that there now is a concern that theyre in for a major beating. But theyre trying to attach that to building global sympathy for whatever israel launches in gaza. How does israel, how does the western world respond to that . Well, its difficult. Because now hamas is getting exactly what they wanted, which is, you know, 24 7 coverage. This is basically the goal. Its the goal is not so much the attack. Its the aftermath. The outcome and the Propaganda Value of what happens. So theyre going to they really want this attack to come on. It seems counter intuitive. Who would want this type of invasion to happen to them. But hamas doesnt care about the people. They only care about the Propaganda Value that happens when those people are killed and injured. Neil general, im sorry to jump on you. Your former b2 Stealth Bomber pilot. You know what it means for close encounters. You heard about the other chinese aircraft that came within ten feet. In the middle of this, china is being provocative as all get out. Well, they are. What youre seeing is their strategy, if you look at it, they talk about it all the time, its we need four distracters for the United States. Russia, iran, north korea and the fourth is terrorism. So they see this as a strategy to keep us overwhelmed and distracted while they pursue their efforts militarily in their region, but also globally in terms of influence. So theyre trying to create a world where most of the world doesnt believe or respect the United States and this is a very effective way to go about it. Quite frankly, our military is getting overwhelmed at the moment. Its going to get worse as this war escalates in the middle east and spreads to asia. Neil as you predicted, only a couple weeks ago when we last chatted. Thanks, general. More so for your credible service to this country. Thank you, general. Neil thank you. Meantime, i want to let you know, well be following this on my saturday show tomorrow at 10 00 a. M. Eastern time. Among the guests, all the key military players. Well talk to senator ben cardin. He heads the Senate ForeignRelations Committee and how far we go to support israel in this effort. Theres been a little dichotomy between the house and the senate about whose ambitions we favor, those of israel or ukraine. We how see the fallout of that. We want to bring you update on a financial matter that came our way. G. M. Has matched ford and its 25 Salary Increase offer to uaw strikers. That means all we have to hear from now at this point is stellantis, the Parent Company of chrysler. A lot of details to be work out, including how you treat new workers that have been there awhile. But this increase seems to be holding. That is a 25 increase for workers there. Some of them with bonuses in the like could see up to an immediate 60 increase for back pay and what have you. The details have yet be worked out. 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Switch to verizon, and get iphone 15 pro on them. sean wow vo get iphone15 pro, apple tv 4k and 6 months of apple one. All three on us. Only on verizon. Inspirational Music [narrator] Wounded Warrior project helps post9 11 veterans realize whats possible. With Generous Community support. Aaron, how you doing buddy . [narrator] we bring warriors together and empower them to become stronger inside and out. Its possible to begin healing to get the help you need. To find peace. [narrator] and as each warriors needs evolve, so do we. Because these last 20 years are just the beginning. Wounded warrior project has been with me every step of my journey. Theyve helped me realize its possible to rise to the top again. Its possible to get the help i need for me and my family. Its possible to hate pushups again. To feel understood. To begin healing both inside and out. To feel like myself again. And now i know anything is possible. gentle music neil the third day of israel targeting the raids. Some say a precursor to a Ground Invasion. The white house has said theyre drawing no red lines for israel as the Ground Offense takes for. Jacqui heinrich is there. Jacqui . Good afternoon. The president s critics z praised the strikes that he order overnight as a necessary and important step in reestablishing deterrence from this war widening in the middle east and establishing that reembellishing that deterrence against any future attacks. A 20th attack on u. S. Forces just this morning is now prompting concern from some of those same critics that perhaps the president s strikes did not go far enough. Listen. The strike in syria overnight was supposed to deter the iranians resulted in another attack. This time a Suicide Drone in iraq this morning. So clearly it didnt work. Im concern that hezbollah has looked at that and thought the United States wont act so maybe we will take a risk and go in. The pentagon says the action taken last night will not be the last u. S. Response if the conditions warrant another one. Officials saying immediately after ward, what you saw was us demonstrate readiness to take Military Action to defend our forces and were read