crafted for. >> your own little. >> bundle of weird by ali. >> hey, good morning, i'm ali velshi. it's saturday, february the 8th. less than three hours ago, three more hostages were who were taken on october 7th, were released by hamas. eli

sharabi or levi and ohad ben-ami. it took place in what has become a standard and rather disgusting, highly choreographed piece of propaganda and show of force. this time each hostage, all appearing very frail, were marched onto a makeshift stage in gaza and forced at gunpoint to deliver short remarks thanking their captives. they've since been handed over to red cross officials, who have handed them over to israeli soldiers. they are back in israel. this is the same air force base that you're looking at right now where they are before heading to hospitals in tel aviv. in exchange, israel has released 183 palestinian prisoners, mainly into ramallah in the west bank. this is the first round of hostage and prisoner exchanges since the cease fire began on january 19th, the day before the second inauguration of donald trump. joining me now is nbc news international correspondent raf sanchez. raf, what's the latest on the newly released hostages? and obviously you've

watched this unfold a few times now. so tell me what we are looking to see in the next hour. >> yeah. ali. so we are four weeks into this fragile ceasefire. >> it is continuing to hold, as you said, three male hostages coming. >> out today in exchange for. >> 183 palestinian prisoners. >> but there are big. >> questions about. >> how much longer. >> this. >> ceasefire can hold, especially. >> in the. >> trump era. >> so let's. >> start with the details. >> of what. >> happened this morning. >> we'll get on to the. >> bigger picture. ali, you and. >> i have covered. >> a. couple of these exchanges together. and you'll remember in the. >> early days. there was. >> just unalloyed. >> joy in. >> israel, especially. >> as these young. >> women were coming out. >> they appeared to be. >> in physically. >> good health. >> but today it was. >> a. darker picture, as. >> you said. >> these three male hostages all appearing. >> emaciated. >> appearing frail. they were. >> able to walk, but they walked a little. >> unsteadily as. >> they mounted that stage put up by hamas. >> and they are not all coming home. >> to happy. >> stories, ali. so just to run. >> through them. >> ali sharabi is 52.

>> years old. >> he was taken from kibbutz. >> barry. >> his wife and his two teenage daughters were. >> killed on october 7th. >> and it is. >> not clear that he knows that. >> it may. >> very well. >> be that he spends. >> the first couple of minutes. in freedom receiving the worst news of. >> his life. >> that his family. >> is dead. >> it's a. >> similar story for albie. he's 34 years old. he was kidnaped. >> from the nova music. >> festival and his wife was killed there. >> they have. >> a little boy who is now three years old, and that boy has been without either of his parents. since october 7th. it is a slightly more bright picture for ohad ben-ami. 56 years old. >> he was. >> kidnaped along. >> with his wife roz. she was. released in that first. prisoner exchange back. >> in november. >> 2023. >> and we are. >> expecting them to. >> be reunited at a. >> tel aviv hospital. in the coming hours. >> so these. >> are darker. >> stories, ali.

>> we don't have quite as much texture on. >> those 183. >> palestinian prisoners who were. >> released, but. >> just. >> from some of the. >> initial images. >> many of them. are looking pretty frail, also. looking skinny. and we are already hearing claims from. >> them that they. >> suffered torture at the hands of their israeli. >> prison authorities. israel has consistently. >> denied that it tortures. >> palestinian prisoners. >> so we are. expecting in. >> the. >> next couple of. >> hours those hostages will. be flown to. >> hospitals in. >> the greater. >> tel. >> aviv area. they will. >> be reunited with their families there. >> those palestinian prisoners, as you. >> said. >> largely going. >> back. >> to ramallah. but ali. >> we are. >> hearing from the office of prime. >> minister benjamin. >> netanyahu that. >> they intend to respond. >> to. >> what they are calling the grim. >> scenes this morning. one, the fact that. >> these. >> hostages were forced to give these interviews on stage by their hamas captors. >> and to just. >> the terrible. condition that they are in. but, ali, there

are. >> also just. >> big questions at. >> this point. >> when you. >> have the president of the united states, the most powerful man. >> on earth, talking. about israel. continuing the war. defeating hamas and then. handing gaza over to the united states, expelling the 2 million. >> palestinian residents who. >> have been through so much since. october 7th. >> there are. >> real questions. >> about what. >> incentives there would be for hamas. >> to. >> continue these cease fire negotiations. >> to try to move. >> from phase one of the deal, which we're in right now, a six. >> week cease. >> fire. 33 israeli hostages released and. >> moved to. >> phase two, which. >> would see a permanent. end to the war. >> the withdrawal of israeli troops. >> from. >> gaza in. >> exchange for the release of all israeli hostages. >> so those. >> negotiations are underway. in an initial. >> phase right now in qatar. >> but there is a. >> lot of concern. >> among the families. >> of israeli. >> hostages, among. >> civilians inside gaza. >> and in the broader. >> community about whether those. >> negotiations are. >> going to. succeed and whether this. >> cease.

>> fire is going to. >> continue, or whether we are going. >> to. >> plunge back. >> into fighting. >> yeah. you're bringing up a really interesting point, ralph, that every week there's been some wrinkle somewhere in in these releases that may have caused a delay, but now we've got a pretty serious matter that's hanging over all of this. interestingly enough, it has not released resulted in a cease fire. we are looking right now at what appear. i'm just going to confirm with my control room. these are live pictures. we're looking at this. this appears to be and again, this is very hard to speculate. ralph and i have learned this because what appears to be is often not what is, but that appears to be a police escort of a vehicle carrying the hostages who have been released. you'll recall they get released to the red cross first in the west, in gaza, then they are handed by the red cross over to the israelis at the point at which they enter israel. and from there they go to the reem airbase. there's not much distance between any of these

places. this is all covering a very small area, but it all does take time. for security reasons. this does look like we are seeing that van, that van right in the middle, that i would speculate because it's the largest vehicle in the convoy and it's got darkened windows. i would suspect that is the van that is carrying the three hostages under police escort. as you can see, they are now approaching. they'll come very close to that helicopter at reem air force base. the israeli military. very careful, by the way, at all stages of this, to not have a lot of imagery of those hostages until well after they are, they get into hospital. then later in the day, you may see pictures of them with their families, photographs released. in some cases they're released video, but they control this very tightly, which is why the what happened this morning when hamas releases them, they sort of parade them across the stage. and that's happened in the last several times. this one seemed a little different today

because they were walked at gunpoint, interestingly enough, and they were compelled to deliver speeches. they delivered them in hebrew critical of the israeli government. so the level of propaganda seems to be a little bit different today. as ralph said, there's some suggestion that there are tensions are increased after what donald trump said earlier this week about his plans for gaza. you can see there that that van and again, i think this now confirms that that probably has the hostages in it. the van has moved into a position that is very close to the helicopter, and you can see that there's a sort of a tunnel that's been put up, a portable cover that's been put up between the vehicle and the helicopter so that you don't see the hostages as they get out of the vehicle and into the helicopter. you can also see a couple of soldiers have been posted on this side of that cover, so that you cannot get a camera shot. this is as good a camera shot as you're going to get of what's going to happen. now, just to describe to you again, what's going to happen is those hostages now in israeli

custody, they are in israel proper, not in gaza. this is an air base. a number of the hostages, by the way, who were spotters on october 7th, were captured from this very base. they are getting onto this helicopter. it then won't be a long journey because distances in israel are not very far. by road it would probably be about 45 or 50 minutes. i'm guessing by helicopter it's a matter of a few minutes, and that helicopter will then go to a hospital north of tel aviv, which is where all of the hostages get taken first for evaluation last week or a couple of weeks ago, what we saw were two helicopters, and i don't see two helicopters right now, but one landed. and then we thought those were the hostages. and then a few minutes later, another helicopter landed. and those actually were the hostages. so that's the that's the choreography. that's what we're watching right now. and we're not the only ones watching this right now. all of israel is watching this. and much of this happens at a place called

hostage square in tel aviv. i want to, i want to all right, i'm going to i'm going to talk to noga tarnopolsky, who's in hostage square in a couple of minutes. but i just want to stay with this until that. until that van pulls away and that closure is taken away, the enclosure is taken away, and that helicopter starts to fire up and get ready to take off. as you can see, the van has pulled forward. i don't know if that means they're done or they're just moving forward to let the hostages off. you're not seeing the rotors on the helicopter start, so they are not ready to go yet. we have no idea what the things that occur are on the ground while they're preparing for this, but they are very careful. and the hostages released this morning did appear to be quite frail. so their health concerns may be different than the ones who have preceded them. even the early hostages who have been released in many cases have not been released from their hospital stay. now, that might be because of

physical health concerns. it might because of be because of psychological concerns. but the ones we've seen released so far have looked, at least at first glance, to be in in pretty good health. that was a little different this morning. these these hostages do appear to be a little bit more frail. you can see that the back door of that vehicle has opened. so i'm not sure whether the hostages are coming out of that. there are a lot of soldiers now standing between the camera that you can see and the and the vehicle. you can also see their vehicles driving by. so the camera position here is on the other side of a road on that base. so that's what we're looking at right now. we've got the vehicle. let's let's just take a look at what's going on here. unfortunately we can't get a closer shot than what you're seeing right now. but these are three hostages who have been released this morning. this is part of the ongoing hostage for prisoner deal that has resulted in a cease fire. this is phase one of the deal. so far, phase

one has moved relatively smoothly. there have been some hiccups. there have been some delays. there have been accusations from both hamas and the israelis that the other side is not maintaining the deal. but in the end, these things have largely been resolved and the cease fire holds. noga tarnopolsky is in hostage square, where they are also watching this. and of course, the helicopter won't land there, but they will all know very well when this has happened. once again, that vehicle has moved now farther, perhaps out of sight, and maybe the hostages have boarded the helicopter. but yeah, the vehicle is leaving now, so i think we can perhaps presume that the hostages are on the helicopter. noga, what's the situation where you are in hostage square in tel aviv? >> hi, ali. >> the situation. >> here is. >> really, really. >> again, but more difficult to describe. you know, a. >> huge cheer. >> went up in the crowd.

>> as this ritual proceeded. >> it's become kind. >> of common now. >> it's the fifth time that we see the doors open from the red cross vehicles, and the first leg of the first hostage. stepping out, and then immediately. >> as the. >> images of these three men released today began to be broadcast on the large screen behind me, men who really appeared emaciated, affectless and barely able to move the a huge hush. fell over the crowd. we're also. >> seeing political. >> responses to the. >> condition of these men, the evident. >> condition of these men today, which are very. >> different responses. >> than those seen in previous weeks. >> noga. >> talk to me for a moment. ralph just made this point, and i, i thought when all the political stuff happened earlier this week with donald trump, with netanyahu in new york and donald trump talking about what should happen in gaza, my first worry was about the state of this fragile deal. for whatever reason, we're here on saturday

morning and the deal is moving forward as as it was planned. so a lot of turmoil in israel about this new discussion, because it's activated some sentiments in israel that have been outside of the mainstream for a very long time. the idea of clearing out gaza entirely. that said, are you surprised that it did not interfere with the deal, as it stands right now, that this cease fire and this hostage exchange and this prisoner exchange is still going on? >> i'm not. >> surprised because. first of all, the trump administration seems intent on seeing this this cease. >> fire. >> ceasefire deal be. >> followed through. >> and we've heard from trump personally. several times. >> this. >> week and from his envoy from secretary of state marco rubio. >> we've heard from. >> all of them that the united states is intent on seeing all the hostages released. i think we should take a. >> step back. >> and consider what it. >> means for. >> israelis that their.

>> government appears. completely impotent. >> or disinterested in other words. in other words, towards. >> israel, israelis. >> are turned. >> to. >> washington and to the american. government to. >> make sure that. >> their citizens will be. >> freed from. >> captivity and terrorists. quite an. >> impact. >> this week, the. >> plan proposed proposed by president trump, however. >> literally or. >> seriously, we. >> should take it to. basically cleanse. >> gaza of gazans. >> one of the most explicit. >> calls for. >> ethnic cleansing. >> i think we've heard in quite a long time. received with a sort. >> of. >> giddiness almost across the political arena in israel. >> but at the same time. >> with this total feeling of unreality. so i don't think anyone thought such a plan is possible or could be. put into place. i think they did enjoy kicking it around while donald trump is kicking it around, but the reality of seeing these men skeletal. >> clearly in. >> extremely bad shape. while this was to be expected, while

we knew that hamas would first release the hostages who appeared in better health, and remember, it's going to get worse, there. >> going to be. >> dead bodies. >> coming across this. border within just. >> a few days. >> and the next phases of this agreement. >> israelis are. >> much more focused. >> on that. >> right now to the extent that, amazingly, the tide seems. >> to have shifted. >> even just today. >> no one is. >> talking about emptying gaza right now, except for getting all of the israelis. >> out. >> of there. >> again, i ask you every week about this, noga, when you're in hostage square, obviously the cheers went up and they're going to go up again. when those rotors start, start moving on the helicopter. and then again, when we watch that helicopter take off. a beautiful moment for not just israelis, but a whole bunch of people who are looking for sustained peace in that region. and then, of course, when the helicopter comes into sight at the hospital, it's going to that at which it's going to land. but talk to me about the sustaining feeling in

between these hostage release days and these prisoner exchange days in israel. is it is it euphoria? is it despair? what's going on in the country? >> it's a combination. >> of everything. resignation. despite the fact that. >> by all. >> military measures, israel won. this war. >> israelis act. >> and feel vanquished. >> you see that the protest movement against netanyahu. >> has really. >> had a very hard time gaining its footing. and while there are. massive protests every saturday night, tonight i expect it will be huge with thousands, tens of thousands of israelis on the streets. they have never managed to regain the magnitude of and. >> the intensity. >> of. >> the protests. >> that existed before the war. there's something about. soldiers dying almost every day that also keeps happening, about news of hostages being killed. >> and then. >> these images today. >> which confirm the worst fears

of israelis. there's something i sense in. israel paralyzing. it may eventually turn galvanizing. >> but it has been paralyzing. >> and i think we should quote the opposition leader, yair lapid. and the chief medical officer who advises. >> the. >> hostage families. >> all of them. >> have said. >> that israeli military intelligence has. warned for. >> months that. israeli soldiers wouldn't survive the winter, that israeli. >> intelligence. >> sorry, israeli. >> hostages wouldn't. >> survive the. >> winter, that their. >> health condition is really cataclysmic and the. >> government appears. >> to have just written. those warnings over very, very lightly, much as they overread warnings they were given by. israeli military intelligence ahead of october 7th. so there are. >> a. >> lot of echoes, those buffeting around. >> the. >> israeli public space right now. >> and i. >> think we will have to see how much pressure this becomes.

>> on netanyahu. >> we also. >> don't know, to. >> be. >> frank, how the trump administration will react. they have seemed intent on seeing all the hostages released, but they haven't made clear if they're willing to actually pressure netanyahu to the extent that he might might lose power, he could lose his coalition partners that we're still waiting to see. >> but the things and again, i've just watched the pitch on the helicopter rotors adjust, which suggests to me that they are getting ready to start that helicopter. they're still they're still vehicles in the close proximity of it. so we may be several minutes away from that helicopter taking off. i don't i don't know if you recall, you obviously know the geography of israel much better than i do. noga. how long once we see that helicopter take off, do you remember from last week or a couple of weeks ago, how long it generally takes to get to the airbase, to the hospital that they're going to? and can you just tell us a little bit more about that hospital? i also will say we do have a second helicopter there. i did describe

this to you, that there, there. the last time we saw two helicopters, i now see two helicopters in the shot. and you can see the rotor blades are spinning on this helicopter. so we're about to see a departure of the hostages from reem air force base to, to the hospital north of tel aviv. where are they going, noga? >> well, interestingly. >> we haven't yet received confirmation on which hospital they're heading to. if, like. >> other hostages. >> have. >> been released, they. >> are brought to beilinson hospital. >> it is. >> really just write. a few. >> almost a few. >> blocks away. >> from here. it's not. >> at. >> all far. and the you know, in previous occasions, the helicopters that were blackhawks have overflown hostages quickly. they even kind of seem. >> to. >> hover. >> and again. >> it's difficult for me. to imagine that's going to. >> happen this time. i think the delay at this. >> point of. >> hours in transporting these.

>> hostages is. >> also an indication. >> of. >> their. >> fragile health. >> if they are. >> really in danger of life and limb, they will probably be taken to a different hospital. there are other hospitals who have prepared emergency reception centers for. these hostages, in case they really are in. critical condition, if they are not in. critical condition, and if they choose, they will. >> come. >> to the major medical center, beilinson hospital, right away from here, just north. >> of tel aviv. >> by a few blocks. and i suspect. >> this is. >> just me guessing that we're not going to see the same. >> sort of euphoric. >> images. >> you know. >> from these. >> cameras that have been waiting. hostages in the in the private rooms where their families await them. i don't think we're going to see exactly those images again this week, i think. sorry about that. i think that this time we should expect. >> a bit. >> of a delay and even more discretion regarding how these

hostages will be treated. >> no. good. stand by. we are seeing the rotors spinning on both helicopters now. they're getting ready to take off. so i'm going to stay on that shot. but i'm going to go to my colleague, nbc's yasmin vossoughian, who as we've been speaking about where they might go, yasmin has gathered some information about the condition of the hostages that were released this morning and where they're headed. so, yasmin, i'm not going to see you. i'm going to stay on this shot while these helicopters get ready yeah. okay. so we are in hoxton square right now, ichilov hospital, which is actually just a little bit a ways away from where i'm standing right now. it's where actually keith segal was hospitalized and then subsequently released, i believe, just yesterday. that is where one of the hostages is going. there's another hospital as well, in which the two other hostages are going to. that is called sheba hospital. it's a suburb of tel aviv. noga is right in that if they were in critical condition and they needed immediate care, there was

a hospital near the gaza border in which they would have been taken to. it seems as if, despite the fact that we saw them emaciated, not well, needing help onto the stage when they were being transferred over to the red cross. they have, in fact concluded that they were well enough to make it to both of these hospitals, sheba hospital and ichilov hospital. if i want to kind of walk you through the process of this whole thing, and usually they come across the border and i'm sure noga kind of took you through this process as well. but i can repeat it for you guys just to understand. they come across the border, they are reunited with their family members who are there. they're then given kind of a thorough check, a thorough health check to make sure to see where it is they should be taking them. then they are loaded into these helicopters that we're watching right now, and they are flown to those hospitals in which i just talked about the designated hospitals, by the way, those hospitals have been pre designated really for the last, i would say almost 12 to 18 hours. we have now known which hospitals they are going to. once they get to those hospitals. there's a landing pad, for instance, which i saw

last weekend on the top of ichilov. once they landed those hospitals, they are then checked into the hospital. they stay for at least a week. that is part of the course. it does not matter what condition they are in. for instance, with segal, he was released yesterday. he was there basically for almost a week, right? six days to be exact. so long as their condition is well, they are then released after a week. if they need more testing, more care, they will remain beyond that one week timeline. if i could just talk quickly about what i've been seeing so far, ali this morning and then i'll toss it back to you is just an incredible amount of emotion here in hostage square, but really mixed emotions, right? i think there was a lot of israelis, especially here in hoshen square, and people throughout tel aviv who were worried that this was not going to go down, especially as to what we saw coming out of washington throughout the week and what we were hearing from hamas specifically saying in gaza, for instance, that they felt as if israeli wasn't keeping up their side of the bargain. right. there wasn't enough humanitarian aid coming in the caravans, the tents were not coming in. and of course, israelis were worried that they were going to respond to what

president trump had said and saying that gazans should leave gaza instead. the day has come. and so certainly it was mixed emotions, but also knowing that there are still 76 hostages remaining. ali, inside gaza. >> i want to ask you about about a couple of things going on. obviously, as this is happening, we have confirmation that a number of prisoners have been released. they generally go to ramallah. do you have an update on on what the situation is in the west bank with the prisoners who are being released? >> i do, so we don't have or i don't remember the exact split of numbers, but the totality of it all is 183 palestinian prisoners who in fact were released today. some of them are going, as you said, to ramallah, to the west bank, for instance, ramallah being the major city in the west bank, and then some of them also going to gaza as well. we also had reports from inside both gaza and the west bank that some of the homes of these prisoners were raided in the

last 12 to 18 hours before the release of these prisoners. some of them are also in bad shape, by the way, at least seven or so prisoners were taken directly to hospitals because. >> and here we go. here we go, yasmin. here we go. helicopter going to interrupt you for a second. yasmine. helicopter number one. you see that has has taken flight. best of our knowledge. that's the helicopter holding the hostages that are released. but as i said, in previous weeks, there have been multiple helicopters. and in at least a couple of weeks ago, it was helicopter two that was holding them. but as we've been keeping an eye on this the whole time, which is part of the reason we have stayed with this shot, it does appear that that was the helicopter. now we're going back and you are likely to see there's helicopter two. it's still on the ground. so unclear what the issue is. maybe helicopter two is a backup helicopter or a rescue helicopter. but again, two weeks ago it was helicopter two that had the hostages on it. we believe it's helicopter one, which is the one you're seeing. just go out of the shot right now. the camera is repositioning now to look at helicopter two.

and actually there's a third helicopter there and a fourth helicopter. helicopter two is taking off right now. so again there's a because of the distance our cameras are at, it's very hard for us to keep track of exactly who's on which helicopter. but as we have seen in prior weeks, within a minute of each other, two helicopters have now taken off and they are headed. i'm going to go back to yasmine for a second. she's going to clarify that the hostages are possibly going to different hospitals. that's what you were saying, yasmine. >> yeah, to two different hospitals. so the hospital. so one of those helicopters, by the way, is going to fly right over my head in about ten minutes or so. i believe that flight time is about ten minutes from the gaza border to where i'm standing right now in hostage square. so if we're still speaking in ten minutes, we're going to see that helicopter fly right overhead, layered on top of ichilov hospital. and then we'll see one of those hostages admitted into ichilov hospital and then the other helicopter. ali, as you as you were talking about, is going to be headed to sheba hospital, which is in a

suburb of tel aviv. two hostages will be heading there. and again, just to kind of walk you through the process of this. once they get to those hospitals, they'll be taken through a variety of tests, reunited with even more family members. i think one thing to clarify here is only certain numbers of families were actually at the border, right? it's usually immediate family, wives, husbands, children, so on and so forth. and then more extended family are waiting, usually in these hospital rooms, to be reunited with the hostages, and then they are taken through the regular testing. they are checked into the hospital and remain for at least a week. i don't know, especially considering what noga was just talking about. if we're going to see kind of that type of reunion that we have seen before, as i mentioned earlier, they did not seem like they were in good shape, not critical, hence why they're still being able to come to the hospitals that they've already been designated to, but nonetheless not in great shape. pretty emaciated, needed help getting up onto that stage. i mean, elisha gabi seemed as if he had lost at least 50 pounds or so. he seemed a lot healthier when before he was taken hostage on on october 7th. and so we may or may not see some of those images

emerging from the hospital and the reunion in the next couple of hours or days to come. ali. >> just to compare, these are the images of these of these three men who were released today before they were taken hostage. so as you see the video through the course of the day, you'll see the difference. yasmine. stand by. we will we'll stay with you and we'll come back to you as that helicopter goes up overhead. please make sure that you and your producer let our control room know about that. i want to go to. i want to go to gaza right now. another piece of phase one of the ceasefire deal. last week, the rafah border crossing between gaza and egypt reopened. this is the first time in eight months since israel seized it that anyone the children, the elderly, the sick, the wounded have been allowed to go through that rafah crossing. and so far, the world health organization says it has supported the medical evacuation of 178 patients. 115 of them are children, 233 were companions.

traveling with those patients. let's just do the math on this. 178 is a lot better than zero, but it's a tiny fraction of the i don't know how many 2500 more sick or wounded children that the un says are at risk of dying if gaza is not allowed to evacuate. if the sick people in gaza are not about to evacuate. i want to be just careful about the language that i use on this, because there's been a proposal put forward by the president of the united states that all of gaza get evacuated of everybody. that's a whole different political story. that's not what we're talking about here. we're talking about evacuation, evacuating sick people and sick children who are at imminent risk of death or desperately in need of health treatment. i want to go to gaza now. unicef spokesperson tess ingram is on the ground there. tess, can you tell me what the situation is? >> i'm in the north of gaza, ali

in gaza city, and the situation here is really desperate for people. as we know, hundreds of thousands of people have come back here over the course of the last ten days as they have been allowed movement to the north. and i was with them on that journey, and people were really hopeful about finding their homes intact, or seeing an uncle or a cousin that they'd been missing. but now that i'm here, that hope is crashing. people are realizing that their homes are rubble, that their loved ones have been killed. and so it is still suffering, still despair, and still lost, particularly for children who are really grieving the lives that they used to live here. and coming back to a very different reality. >> you understand children, obviously, unicef, a great deal around the world. there are two issues. there are the people who you have described. unicef has described 2500 plus children requiring sort of imminent care because of potential death. but when dealing with children in a war zone, there's a there's a subsequent problem that is almost greater than the immediate death of a number of people. it's the lack of education, their loss of their

parents and their loved ones and the ptsd and just trauma that these kids may never recover from. >> yeah. that's right. so the first group are really languishing in pain in hospitals, children with severe burns that haven't been able to be treated even since the ceasefire, children with cancer and other preexisting conditions. i was in al-shifa hospital here just a few days ago in the north, and that used to be the biggest hospital here in the north of gaza, with great capacity for surgeries and for neonatal care. that has all been decimated. and they said that they need to medically evacuate these very sick and injured children to make sure that they survive, because right now, there's quite a number who are really hanging by a thread because they cannot provide them with the care that they need. but as you say, on top of that, you know, we estimate that all 1.1 million children in the gaza strip need mental health support. many children need clean access to water. they need nutrition treatments after being malnourished without access to food. so the needs are extensive. and for children,

they really have struggled. they really have borne the brunt of this war. so we are now doing everything we can as unicef to try and serve them during this moment of, you know, pause from the fighting. >> it's been five years or so since i've been in gaza. it was obviously one of the most densely populated places in the world. and if you've been in a lot of places in, you know, southeast asia or asia, you'll, you'll, you'll, you'll understand that it's buildings and people, you know, closely packed together. that said, it was a place with real infrastructure and a, you know, a city that looked like a city. you're back there. how how bad is the destruction? the physical destruction. >> it's extreme. it's worse than we have ever seen. colleagues who have been to places, many places around the world have said they've never seen anything like it. and our colleagues who are gazans were also shocked. i was with one colleague driving through jabalia, which was an area heavily impacted by bombardment. he's from there, and he didn't recognize his community, his neighborhood. he

got lost because the buildings there are essentially flattened as far as the eye can see. so it's really bad. and that impacts not only people's homes, but also the services that they rely on, such as water. water in the north of gaza is less than 20% capacity of what it was before the war. so people are really struggling to reestablish their lives without those services like water. but of course they want to reestablish their lives. and this is the key point. yes, there's a lot of destruction, but people are determined to rebuild. >> i want to ask you about the one of the parts of phase one of the deal and the ceasefire deal in general, was the flow of aid into gaza. but it's an abstraction to those of us who don't know about this. 200 trucks versus 500 trucks versus 900 trucks. what are we talking about in terms of stuff that people need, things that you at unicef and other organizations need, pure caloric needs fuel. what what where are we in terms of aid going into gaza? >> we've jumped significantly in

the ceasefire, and that's fantastic news we're doing now. i think about 4200 trucks a week as the international humanitarian community, which i said is a significant increase from during the war. however, it is not enough to undo 15 months of deprivation, so it's imperative that this ceasefire holds so we can continue to bring in aid and, of course, that the hostage release can continue as well. for unicef's part, we're focused on bringing in nutrition supplies for malnourished children. we're focused on bringing in hygiene kits and repairing water systems. we're focused on bringing winter clothes. it's still very cold here in gaza, and i've seen so many children without shoes. and we're also scaling up services like mental health and psychosocial support to help children begin to heal those scars of war. >> tess, thank you. thanks to unicef. thanks for thanks to you and your colleagues and for all the workers who are out there in horrible circumstances trying to make things better for a whole lot of people who did nothing to be involved in in this, in this

horrible war. tess ingram is a spokespersoncef in gaza city. joining me now is jeremy konyndyk. he's the president of refugees international and the former director of usaid's office of foreign disaster assistance. jeremy, thank you for being here. and maybe we'll get a chance to talk about a number of things that are going on with your agency right now, but the work of your former agency. but the work is not done. i mean, the fact is, there is you just heard from tess. there is going to be so much work to be done. i'm glad to be in phase one of this cease fire deal. i hope it gets to phase two. there are doubts it will get to phase three, but the point is, we're seeing things go at least in the right direction. except that what has been a refugee crisis since 1948 and has only gotten worse over the decades, is about to get worse. >> yes, that's right. the freeze on us foreign aid funding is impacting gaza. i have talked to

multiple relief organizations on the ground in gaza who have have found that even after secretary rubio a few weeks ago issued a waiver on humanitarian assistance to exempt it from the trump administration's foreign aid freeze, the money still is not moving. so they are still having to greatly curtail activities. and it is getting to the point now where the cutoff in us assistance could threaten the ceasefire. >> and that's part of the concern about indiscriminate cuts in in aid, particularly in us foreign aid. right. everything is not the same. you can't be a hammer and everything can't be a nail. this we are looking at pictures right now. you just heard from tess about the increase in aid. this is literally stuff. and by the way, this is happening in in different places for different reasons. hiv treatment in africa, malaria treatment in africa, all sorts of things going on in asia. this is literally life and death stuff. >> it truly, truly is. and, you know, the cutoff has been completely sweeping, totally indiscriminate. you know, they framed it as well. we want to do

a 90 day review. and they talked about not liking what they called woke programing and climate programing. the reality on the ground is that they are just halting everything. and so, you know, feeding, feeding kids, providing medical care in a place like gaza, sustaining a famine response in sudan, keeping people on hiv treatment around the world, 20 million people depend on the us government for their hiv treatment to keep their infections suppressed. all of those things now are are running into the ground because of the what they're really trying to do, it seems, is not review anything but just end us foreign aid. >> now a judge has temporarily blocked this. i mean, they're talking about letting 14,000, close to 14,000 people go. i think the last number i saw was that under 300 people would remain with usaid. a judge has temporarily blocked this. the trump administration has talked about there being waste and

fraud and abuse and all of this stuff. what's what's your take on this? you think it's sort of a vendetta. >> it's absolutely a vendetta. and you can see that in the way that elon musk talks about it. you can see that in what they're actually doing versus what they claim to be doing. you know, secretary rubio has repeatedly said, look, this is just a pause to enable a review. while behind the scenes, his his employee, pete morocco is going about and destroying the agency. if you take an agency down from 14,000 people to 300 or 600, there's no one left to conduct a review. you know, it's just an absurdity. so, you know, i think what is really happening here is they are ignoring all law, ignoring ignoring all procedure and process that they're legally required to comply with and just trying to get this agency killed before congress and the courts catch up. and that is why the injunction last night is really, really important because it it temporarily prevents them from going ahead with this huge round

of staff layoffs. it also prevents them from beginning the process of pulling back all usaid personnel overseas. once that begins, obviously, the whole job of preserving u.s. foreign aid gets much harder, so that that order is very important. >> but that's wild, right? because all these people overseas, in some places they are in in tough areas. in other words, it's not a matter of, oh, i had a flight on friday. now this judge has put it on hold. so maybe i'll be, you know, like getting out of some of the places that usaid people work is a massive undertaking. people have their lives there. they have their children there. they might be in sudan where you can't just sort of decide you're, you know, pull up stakes and leave. it is super disruptive to the kinds of people who are doing work. and just tell me a little about this, because usaid people are not princes and potentates and people who live in, in, in mansions. this is this is it's different jobs all over the world. but it's hard work. >> it is hard work. and, you know, these are folks everywhere

from, you know, some of the you know, they they're in places like kenya, which are a little easier, but they're also in places like south sudan, you know, up until the fall of kabul, there was a very large us presence in afghanistan. and they, you know, they got medevac, they got, you know, emergency evac out of afghanistan after the fall of kabul, during the fall of kabul. what's happening right now? it's as if kabul were falling everywhere around the world, and they needed to do an emergency evac of every single post, which is absurd, because, you know, usaid could stay. the emergency here is simply elon musk's vendetta and other trump administration's officials vendetta, and it does harm people. i have heard a number of instances of usaid personnel overseas who, when they lost email access, were suddenly outside of embassy security protection because everything all of the embassy security information and the protection networks and so on, that all was premised on your access to that was premised on your email account. so it has really put u.s. personnel at grave harm. it's forcing people to pull

their kids out of school in the middle of the year. it's very traumatic. and i think that's the point. >> jeremy, thank you for joining me. there's a lot more to talk about this particular issue, but i appreciate you being here in this moment where we actually see the reality of what pulling back on, on u.s. foreign aid can do. jeremy konyndyk is the president of refugees international. he's a former director of usaid's office of foreign disaster assistance. i want to go back to yasmin vossoughian. she's in tel aviv. i also want to see we have some pictures. if our if our control room has it. we saw some pictures. these are prisoners. palestinian prisoners getting off the bus. we believe this is khan younis in in gaza. but again, i want to just warn everybody. i'm not sure about anything at the moment because this is fast moving. you can see red cross people in the red vests there and yasmin, tell me whatever it is you want to tell me, but i just want to make sure we distinguish when we talk about some of these palestinian prisoners. some have been convicted of things. they've been in jail for a long time.

some are administrative detention detainees who have never stood trial for anything. >> yeah. let me kind of give you a breakdown that i know of because, you know, it's hard to kind of really get clarity on exactly what some of these prisoners are serving, what they weren't serving. and i just want to note to everybody that's watching as well. so i got one eye on obviously you, ali, and the live shots that we're seeing in gaza. and khan younis, as you mentioned, i believe and i have one eye on the sky because any moment now we're going to be hearing from ohad ben-ami, the 56 year old hostage who was released flying overhead to love hospital. so when we go to that, i'm going to kind of transition to talk more about that. but but let me just talk. >> yeah. please just let your i don't know. >> if you. >> i don't know if you've got a, if you're your photographer will get that shot. but go to it if you get that helicopter and we'll take. >> that shot at it. >> yeah. right. >> he'll get it. he can get it. he's he's he's one of the best he can get it. so 183 palestinian prisoners released. as i mentioned earlier. here's the breakdown for you. 18 of

those prisoners were sentenced to life. 54 of those prisoners were sentenced with incredibly long sentences. and then we had 111 prisoners who were from gaza, who were actually a who were arrested, i should say, after october 7th. seven of them now will subsequently be deported, many of them returning now to their families in the west bank, in gaza. i also want to talk you through when you were having that conversation about humanitarian aid, because i think it's important. there's a lot going on, right? when we talk about what's happening in gaza, for instance, i know one of your guests mentioned how they are getting a lot more humanitarian aid there. but i mentioned earlier the caravans, the tents. that is something they are still seeking. we've had terrible weather here over the last 48 to 72 hours. i'm talking 50 mile an hour winds, really cold rain as well. i mean, if you saw some of the images coming out of gaza, people were literally roofless. they had nothing over them. obviously with that high winds and rain and young children, incredibly miserable conditions. if you look to the south, to rafah, where many people in the north are evacuated to, we had a declaration, a statement from the mayor of rafah, essentially saying we are in dire straits

here. we need more humanitarian aid. there have been 40,000 palestinians who have been displaced to rafah, who remain here. we don't have the facilities, the infrastructure to support those individuals. we need those tents. we need those caravans. we need mobile homes. throughout this phase one and phase two of this deal, mobile homes were also promised to the palestinians in gaza. it seems as if those have not yet arrived. when it comes to talking about humanitarian aid moving over to the west bank as well, there has been kind of this idea that possibly this war, because of the cease fire in gaza, is shifting more to the west bank. and the reason being is we have seen continued violence in the west bank. ali, you and i were speaking last weekend when we saw those incredible explosions, 100 or so buildings that were blown up, 20,000 or so displaced from jenin camp, jenin refugee camp there. in addition, throughout the week we had another refugee camp in which 30,000 plus palestinians were displaced from there. then we had doctors without borders issuing a statement saying that the medical situation inside the west bank was dire as well, that

they need services, they need aid. and so, i mean, as we're looking at and that is why this is obviously such an incredibly complicated situation, which is, by the way, putting it very lightly. so much going on, so much high emotion with these dire situations. right. this cease fire happening, people coming home and yet still so much need all the way around and still keeping my, my eyes on the i on the air because i haven't seen this helicopter fly over yet, but we should be getting it any moment now. ali. >> yasmin, i'm going to ask you to stand by. and of course we'll stay on this shot. we'll also go to your helicopter shot as soon as you see the helicopters coming in. as we know, there are two helicopters, so we will never be sure which one has the hostages on them and which one doesn't. but we will see two helicopters. one will go. and as yasmin said, they're going to two different places. so it could be that, you know, lots of stuff can happen. we'll stay on top of it with yasmin. we'll stay on top of these shots with you. my control room will alternate. these are the prisoners getting out in khan yunis. some of the prisoners are

being released to gaza. this is khan yunis in gaza. some of the prisoners are being released to ramallah in the west bank. ramallah is essentially the de facto acting capital of the west bank. the palestinians will tell you that jerusalem is the capital and under the disputed state of jerusalem, both the israelis and the palestinians claim jerusalem as their joint capital. effectively, though, most government organizations and agencies are in tel aviv for israel, and the similar situation exists in ramallah for the palestinians. joining me now, aaron david miller, senior fellow at carnegie endowment for international peace, former senior advisor for arab-israeli negotiations at the state department. stephen cook joins me as well. he's a senior fellow for middle east and africa studies at the council on foreign relations. good morning to both of you guys. aaron, i'm amazing that we are at the fifth week of this. israel and hamas have a commitment to continue a longer lasting truce. boy, donald trump threw a wrench into

the works earlier this week. what's your sense of where we are compared to where we were a week ago? >> i mean, frankly, ali, it's great to be here with you, you and steve. i'm really surprised, frankly, at how smoothly, despite the delays and the obstructions, that phase one has gone. but we're approaching the fifth week. three more weeks, two more exchanges of three israeli civilians, males, and then the final exchange of 11. eight of those 11 are not alive. and then we're on to phase two. and i think that's the critically important issue here. and i think, frankly, i understand the media's attraction to this untethered, provocative, with no context proposal that the president laid out on gaza. but the real story here is, i think, how the administration, rather than pressing benjamin netanyahu with respect to moving forward on the

second stage, has created a sort of bromance with the prime minister. they've strengthened his right wing coalition. any sense that the government will now fall, i think has been alleviated by the gaza proposal and by trump's acquiescence in israeli activities on the west bank? maybe, ali, it's an effort to bolster netanyahu and help him bring his right wing along. but i think that's going to be a very tough lift as we approach the key decisions in phase two, stephen. >> i mean, there's been euphoria amongst the far right, and i'm talking about the real far right in israel because they were so outside of the mainstream, despite enjoying some senior positions in this, in the netanyahu administration, the kind of thing that donald trump intimated is has not been it was it was never mainstream israeli view, but it was it hasn't been it hasn't even really had had had traction. these this is this is there's some people in israel who are saying, wow, donald

trump went way further than we've we've been talking about for decades. well, that's right. >> it's not even an idea that was entertained by the right wing fringe in israel, which is now quite larger than it was before october 7th. but the settler community doesn't want the united states to take over, quote unquote, clean out and, quote, own the gaza strip. they want to resettle the gaza strip. this is going much further than what any israeli settler has wanted. but it is mainstreaming the idea. and this is what they're this is what they're happy about. it's mainstreaming the idea that this is not territory that is necessarily going to be set aside for palestinians or some notional future palestinian state. that is something that the far right in israel has been pounding the drums on for many, many years. it's what the settlers who withdrew, who were withdrawn from the gaza strip in 2005, have been talking about ever since. and now, actually, a far

larger percentage of israelis are willing to contemplate resettlement of the gaza strip. but it's still not a majority view. and donald trump has given life to this idea in ways that i don't think the right wing in israel could ever have imagined. >> hey, stephen, everybody, understandably, both sides of this, this hostage ceasefire deal are prickly. every week something happens that one, one side thinks the other side is, you know, not maintaining the rules. i'm a i'm a little surprised that that that hamas didn't jump on it. i mean, they've commented on it all week, but that it didn't affect the actual release of hostages today. there was a piece of me that said, oh, are we not going to see this release happen? why is that? why? why did that outlandish proposal by donald trump not derail today? >> well, just to echo something that aaron said, the first phase is one that it seems despite whatever bumps there have been, both sides have an interest in

maintaining. in fact, throughout this long negotiation for a cease fire, there's been a lot of maneuvering to blame the other side for not having a cease fire. and hamas has a compelling interest in not wrecking the cease fire at the moment. and if it's if it's undermined, it's going to be the israelis who are going to undermine it. but as aaron said, we're getting towards crunch time and the beginning of negotiations for phase two, and there's not a lot of appetite among within the israeli government for phase two. and hamas is almost daring the israelis to undermine the cease fire with these kinds of pageants that they've staged with the release of hostages. >> aaron, obviously, you have the greatest and highest view of anybody on this because of how much time you've spent on this, but going right down to ground level to hostage square right now, the level of euphoria that israelis are going through, euphoria and sadness on a on a weekly basis, obviously, we are seeing hostages who are more frail. as you mentioned, we are in a couple of weeks going to somehow cover the exchange of

bodies of, of dead hostages. what does that do to the outcome of, of whether or not we get to phase two or anywhere else? at some point, this will stop being the euphoria of the release of hostages. >> i mean, it does raise the question, and to which i don't have an answer is how much influence and import does public opinion carry with respect to this government? and it's in many respects it's a split screen. i think the trauma of october 7th has not has not faded when the bodies come home, the frailty of these hostages will will accelerate public pressure. but again, it's all a question. i'm afraid of politics to govern in israel, you need 60 plus one. netanyahu's got 60, 62 now. wouldn't be surprised me if ben-gvir comes back to return the numbers to 68. and washington is enabling that process. one additional point, which was not, i think, missed by anyone. at the press conference, the president made some elliptical comment that

within four weeks he'd be in a response to a question on annexation, made some elliptical comment on making a statement within four weeks on the matter. so you have to wonder exactly what his intention is. is it a is it a matter of pushing netanyahu to end the war in gaza, but consolidating israeli control over the west bank? steve made a great point. trump has effectively detached gaza from any putative negotiations over over a palestinian state. so not clear what's in store, but. >> i'm just going. >> to it's going to be a very heavy lift. >> i'm going to interrupt you there. i'm sorry guys. aaron and stephen, we have the helicopter now landing one helicopter landing. as i continue to say, i never know which helicopter is which. there are two helicopters on their way. we do not know that helicopter has landed. that appears to be. i think this is. i'll ask my control room. which which landing strip? this

actually is because we know that the helicopters are going to two places. yasmin. yasmin knows. why do i have to guess? yasmin vossoughian is in austin square. what are we watching? we're asking. >> so this is sheba hospital. this is the hospital that is in the suburbs of tel aviv. there's actually three helicopters, obviously, for three hostages or levy is in is in this helicopter or levy is 34 years old with a young daughter. if you remember, he was actually taken from the nova music music festival. he was cornered in a bunker alongside his wife with hersh goldberg. we know hersh goldberg very well, obviously one of the six hostages that were killed during the war. well into the war. his parents have appeared on our air many times. his wife was killed on october 7th in that bunker. so or levy now returning to israel, landing there at sheba hospital. ali to be greeted, obviously by more family members. we don't know if

he's already been reunited with his his young child. i believe his daughter is only four years of age. but again, this incredibly bittersweet moment for or levy, considering the fact that he is returning now after 491 days in captivity, knowing full well that his wife was killed on october 7th. ali. >> we are now seeing that that corridor that's always put up so that the media does not get these cameras, cannot get a proper shot of the hostage who will be leaving that plane. we also did see medical personnel. we saw somebody in a white coat. i don't know whether they boarded the helicopter or not yet or they're waiting on the side of it. obviously, this is how the shot is going to look for a while until they remove this, this blockage. and you you see the helicopter riding away, you'll see a van possibly taking the, the patient to the hospital. that's our coverage for now. thank you to yasmin vossoughian, to aaron david miller to steven cook to test

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