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I think that the Israeli cabinet has deliberately decided to prefer the goal of defeating Hamas over the goal of bringing back the rest of the hostages.

After completing 80-ish percent of the mission,

it's terrible to speak about it in these terms,

but 207 out of 251,

now the paramount goal from the perspective of the Israeli cabinet

is to defeat Hamas over bringing all the hostages back home.

The IDF chief went to the government and said,

you know what,

if this is what you want to do, take out the aim or the goal of getting the hostages back or

downgrade it. Now, to what extent, a dialogue there with one Ron Dermer and the chief of staff,

was the chief of staff saying to Ron Dermer and to the head of the Mossad,

why are you here in this room?

Why won't you go and negotiate right now before we begin this operation?

So this is the level of opposition that you're hearing. It's 3 p.m. on Tuesday, September 16th here in New York City, it's 10 p.m. on Tuesday,

September 16th in Israel, as Israelis watch news of the ground operation on Gaza City unfold. First, before we get into

today's episode, a little bit of housekeeping. It's been just over a month since we launched

inside Call Me Back, and we've been blown away by your support. So thank you. It does mean a lot.

And some of you have also told us it has been a little

confusing to tell the call me back feed apart from the inside call me back feed. So to keep

things simple, we're making a small change. On Mondays and Thursdays, the regular call me back

episodes will continue to be released, but we will move the inside

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