pressure is mounting to delay a ground invasion in Gaza as Israel's Defense Forces intensify their air strikes in response to the October 7th assault by Hamas Palestinian officials today described the last 24 hours as a bloody night that killed more than 700 people including entire families in a refugee camp that was holding tens of thousands of people who've been displaced by the Israel Hamas War the death toll now inching closer to 6,000 according to gaza's health Ministry with more than 15,000 injured though that information hasn't been independently verified in Tel Aviv one of the two Israeli hostages released from Hamas custody spoke publicly today for the first time the 85-year-old yahovah lietz described her capture by the militant group as having quote gone through hell but described friendlier conditions from her captors her release now makes four total hostages who've been freed giving hope for the roughly 200 more who were kidnapped the Us and other International powers are working to address the humanitarian crisis inside the Gaza Strip and prevent a regional spillover of the war for more on the US strategy in this I'm joined by Michael Bole an associate professor at ruter Camden who focuses on terrorism Michael thanks so much for joining me it appears anyway that a ground Invasion has been imminent now for many days but the US says it's really not sure that uh Israeli Defense Forces have a clear end game what would a ground Invasion look like and what type of heavy loss specifically civilian loss would we be talking about so ground invasion is likely very very costly part of the reason why is because humus has built a series of tunnels under the city uh it's something described as a kind of spider we of tunnels but but to suggest that it's sort of a small tunnel it doesn't quite get it it's a network of tunnels underneath the city um that underneath Gaza City and underneath large parts of the territory that Israel would have to go in and clear out so if you're talking about a ground Invasion it wouldn't essentially be surface fighting it's very likely that those tunnels themselves will be booby trapped they at the minimum be very well defended you're very likely to see the use of things like for example suicide bombers or other sets of kind of improvised explosive devices that Hamas would deploy inside the tunnels so this be extraordinarily difficult and costly Urban combat the real difficulty here is this is fought in an environment with a lot of civilians so if the civilians haven't fled from the northern pie of Gaza and they're in the buildings then you run a series of risks that if you knock down buildings for example that you'll kill civilians the civilians themselves may be held hostage by Hamas and you may also see attacks on Israeli hostages as a way of Leverage against Israel if Israel attacks so this would be an extraordinarily bloody ground campaign with a lot of risks that you would kill the hostages and a lot of risks of Civilian casualties and that's why Israelis officials have said they think it might be on the order of months if not years is that why we see my words the US sort of dialing back some of its rhetoric um obviously still standing in support and and willing and and able to supply Israel um with all of the artillery needs and so forth um and yet really cautioning against this ground war and really urging more humanitarian Aid I mean already 5,000 Palestinians have died I think the US is worried about this in a couple ways first that it would turn into a larger regional conflict that you would see in the event of a ground Invasion that hezb would begin to launch top Rockets into Israel that Israel would get engaged in a ground campaign against Hezbollah that you might draw Iran in on the fact that it backs both Hamas and Hezbollah I think the US is right about a large a larger Regional Fallout associated with this um it's also worth pointing out that there are host being held by Hamas that are not allowed to transfer and get themselves into Egypt including 200 Americans right so the United States has a lot of reasons to be careful to advising Israel essentially to say look if we're going to support you you have to think very hard about what this combat is going to look like to do it in a way that is as discriminate as possible that puts as little risk to civilians as possible and to mitigate the effects both on your own soldiers on hostages and other people who might be trapped there I think the the the question that's on everyone's Minds also is just what does a postwar Israel look like how long could this battle be waged so most Israeli officials suggest that this is if the ground Invasion happens and and it's likely to happen they think it's going to run several months if not years and part of the question is what is Israel's ultimate War aims and this is where you've seen the US begin to ask some hard questions is the war aim to destroy Hamas and annihilate the group entirely or is it essentially to break hamas's military infrastructure those are different things the other question is from what Israel has said it seems to suggest that Hamas cannot be part of a governing structure in Gaza afterwards so the question then becomes who governs Gaza if Israel reoccupy Gaza then in a sense it's magnified its own problems you have a large territory that you're administering with a very large population you also have to then administer Gaza City with 700,000 people there not easy to do um so the other danger is that somebody worse will come forward right another group that's that's powerful and operating in Gaza is Palestinian Islamic Jihad and from Israel's point of view the last thing you want to do is eliminate Hamas and then have an even more extreme group an even more violent group take over the territory Michael Bole is an associate professor of political science at ruer campden Michael thank you so much thank you for having me