The war continues even with the leader of Hamas dead. The international community expresses its fears

for northern Gaza. The weight goes on for Israel's response to Iran's attacks. We'll take a step

back and try to put all this and this last year in context with one of the world's great

historians, Sir Simon Sharma.

It's Unholy. I'm Jonathan Friedland of The Guardian in London.

And I'm Unite Levy of Channel 12 in Tel Aviv.

It's Unholy. I don't know why. I mean, I think I do know why, Jonathan, this kind of holiday season feels a little bit. I don't know. Um, discombobulated as the word out comes to mind, right? It is, maybe it is just the fact that everything is intertwined with memorial days, maybe because the news doesn't stop spinning even though it's

the holidays and usually it's the moment where we need to sort of recharge and, you know, take time off.

It is just very strange holiday season in many ways. And of course,

Israel, as you said, is preparing for its retaliatory attacks against Iran after October 1st

and Iran attacking Israel. So that is where we are. But maybe we should talk about something else

entirely before we dive into all of the news that's been going on.

I don't know. What do you think? We should. I mean, it's absolutely a sort of sober time,

because as we're speaking Wednesday morning, it is the, we're building up to the eve of what

will be the Hebrew anniversary on the Hebrew calendar. Jews are preparing to mark the festivals

of Shemini At Serat, Ts Simchatura. This is where the Hebrew

calendar, which people are not familiar with this, it moves from year to year. It's not the same

as the secular calendar. This is the anniversary on that Hebrew calendar of the October 7 attack.

So that point you're making about how the holiday season has been completely

coloured by the anniversary, that's really especially true because it's kind of bookended

by it because we are going into that extra layer of commemoration. But you're right. Let's

think and talk about something else which people, has been the

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