lieutenant general twitty, former deputy commander of the u.s. european command. of course, the former chief of staff at the pentagon and cia. courtney, just a couple things that kind of stood out. he said that they're in a better place than they were in terms of these hostage negotiations. he did condemn the deadly attack of these u.s. troops. and he seemed to express a degree of optimism in terms of the eventual release of these hostages and a potential cease fire. did you, in general, feel like there was an encouraging direction at least it seems from the prime minister's perspective? >> yeah, i totally agree with you, ryan, on a couple of things. on the hostages, he said look, it's up to hamas. at the end of the day, we're still waiting to see what hamas says. if they agree to some sort of a deal to release these hostages. whatever that's going to look like. but he did point out that kuo qatar is trying to be a bridge between these competing, waring factions, and they hope they can continue to play that role. so he seemed to express some optimism on that. agai

general twitty, thank you very much for coming back to the sunday show. why are u.s.s stationed at tower 22? >> so, jonathan, good to be with you. first of all, let me just say that my heart goes out to the families of the soldiers that have fallen. and the reason why u.s. troops are in the region there in jordan, they're in iraq, and they continue to be in syria. it is part of the u.s. strategy to continue to go after -- as our counter i. s. i. s. strategy, the reason why we have been successful against i. s. i. s. is because of these troops that you see, many do not know that their troops inside syria that they don't know that troops were inside jordan. or we still had troops in iraq. these troops, on a day-to-day basis, keep this nation safe. so, that's why they're there to go after i. s. i. s.. >> so, these are the first american casualties tied to the israel-hamas war. how serious an escalation does this represent? >> this is very serious, jonathan. as you know, there have been over 150 attacks on u.s. forces in our interests since the start of the hamas israel w

general twitty, thank you very much for coming back to the sunday show. why are u.s.2? >> so, jonathan, good to be with you. first of all, let me just say that my heart goes out to the families of the soldiers that have fallen. and the reason why u.s. troops are in the region there in jordan, they're in iraq, and they continue to be in syria. it is part of the u.s. strategy to continue to go after -- as our counter i.s.i.s. strategy, the reason why we have been successful against i.s.i.s. is because of these troops that you see, many do not know that their troops inside syria that they don't know that troops were inside jordan. or we still had troops in iraq. these troops, on a day-to-day basis, keep this nation safe. so, that's why they're there to go after i.s.i.s.. >> so, these are the first american casualties tied to the israel-hamas war. how serious an escalation does this represent? >> this is very serious, jonathan. as you know, there have been over 150 attacks on u.s. forces in our interests since the start of the hamas israel war. there have been several att

joining us now, michael crowley, james twitty and colin clark. deputy commander of the u.s. group. the israeli-based bergman has written an entire book on the israeli successful records, started assassinations. the kills of the hamas official, who else besides israel would have done this? >> well, israel, there's no question about it, you can see regev's remarks in trying to skirt the line. >> yeah. >> this is a big strike. it sends a signal not only to hamas, but iran, with the leadership in iran. and look, andrea, let's be clear, this conflict has been a regional conflict from day one. but we're now seeing spillover violence escalating into syria, into lebanon, and elsewhere. and there's real concerns that this could drag in other major actors in the region and kind of amplify some of the violence we've already been seeing. >> there's some comments privately from the military, the military in the u.s., current and former, that the u.s. has to be more aggressive but deterrence is not working and it's getting awfully close and the u.s. has to do something to work at it? >> w

. >>> we're joined by retired general steph twitty. i appreciate you being with us on the first day of the new year. let's start with this. we have a lot to cover. prime minister netanyahu says israel needs many more months to destroy hamas. what do you think the next few months will look like and how will that differ from what we've been seeing now. >> good to be with you, francis, and happy new year. i think we'll see much of what we've seen the past couple months. keep in mind that prime minister netanyahu has said destroy hamas. in order to destroy hamas you have to relent lesley go after hamas. as you can see, the israelis are doing just that. it's going to take a while to destroy hamas. additionally you still have the hostages that are there in gaza, held up by hamas. the israelis will need to capture the hostages. third, as you saw last night, there's still missiles raining down on israel from hamas in the gaza strip. they'll need to be destroyed. there's a lot of work to be done here. so i think you're going to see this war con

joining us now is lieutenant general stef twitty, former deputy general of the european command.e houthis have fired directly at a u.s. naval vessel. and retaliatory strikes, so nine rounds of u.s. strikes are not doing enough to cripple the houthi's capabilities or to stop them from keeping this up. >> andrea, good to be with you, and we must remember that the houthis went through several years of a saudi-led air campaign, and so these are hardened militants, and they have hardened facilities in which they can hide such as the tunnels in which you're seeing in gaza strip, they're in yemen as well. they have underground bunker facilities also behind their radars and hide their munitions, and so they are skilled at this given that they've endured the saudi-led air campaign, and they don't intend to back down from the u.s. they've been emboldened. they're defiant. they view themselves as in solidarity with the palestinians and the palestinian calls. and oh, by the way, the iranians are backing them. so we can expect for this to continue. >> let's turn to ukraine, another hot spot o

joining us now, richard engel, who is in jerusalem, and retired lieutenant general twitty.me ask the general about the military action. the strike the u.s. conducted against the houthis. so far, they don't seem to be getting the message, if this is meant to deter further actions. >> yeah, good to be with you. you are correct, they are not getting the message. when we conducted the first strike, when we had the coalition that conducted the strike with us, one or two things could have happened. they could have received the message and put down their weapons. but this is what happened. they became emboldened. now what you see is an emboldened houthi force going after not just the commercial lanes, but trying to stand up to america and coalition partners such as the uk and others. we saw several chants in support of the houthis. i think they just emboldened, and they are going to continue to do this regardless of what we do. we just need to be prepared to go after the houthis in a pre-emptive manner. that's what you saw in these strikes here that occurred today with the u.s. st

twitty and art and, the president is simply the person and conveying that honor. and so it is bigger than the and i think it's one of the great american tradition is. and as you could see, president obama and every other president i've covered truly enjoys those moments. i covered the white house for nearly four more than seven years. and the big story was the white house easter egg. yeah, yeah. people want see this? yes. so, mike, you're the you're the you're the image meister here. what are the pictures? what is the television. and that connects with people that, you know, connects with people. well, i mean, great example here. it's when you connect to the walks of life that americans experience and when you touch them about something that is relevant to who they are, what they think the country is about. i mean, those are the great moments. you know, we've talked a lot about how television television can elevate and amplify moments like this where whereas, you know, celebrating something exceptional about the country. but television also needs to do, i think, t