Hello and welcome to Background Briefing available 24-7 at background briefing.

I'm Ian Masters and today we'll look into a number of stories and issues in the news.

We will begin with the one-year anniversary of the brutal Hamas attack on Israel,

when in which 1,200 mostly women and children were slaughtered by Hamas,

while 250 were taken hostage,

prompting a war on Gaza that has killed 42,000 and has now expanded to Lebanon and could soon engulf the whole region.

Joining us from Israel is Hagamatar, an award-winning Israeli journalist and political activist.

He is executive director of 972 magazine, and we will discuss the local reaction to this anniversary

as today over 170 missiles from Hezbollah

targeted the cities of Haifa, Tiberius and Camille.

Then we'll examine how a pending and likely retaliation against Iran for its recent

missile attack on Israel could backfire if Iran's nuclear facilities

are targeted. Joining us is James Acton, co-director of the Nuclear Policy Program

and a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a winner of the

Carnegie Corporation of New York Grant on new technologies and the nuclear threat.

He's a former member of the Nuclear Security Working Group and was co-chair of the Next Generation Working Group on U.S. Russia arms control.

He's the author of deterrence during disarmament, deep nuclear reductions and international security,

abolishing nuclear weapons, and why Fukushima was preventable. Then finally we look into whether Trump's

Christian soldiers waiting for Netanyahu to trigger Armageddon might actually read the prophecies

and realize that Trump is the Antichrist and not the promised return of the Messiah.

Joining us is Stephen Yulaki, a producer of over 25 films made for television movies and documentaries.

He was Dean of the Loyola Marymount University School of Film and Television from 2010 to 2018 and was previously

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