here are the top stories we re covering this hour. israel says its war effort to eliminate hamas is entering a new phase with the new year. but is it going to reduce civilian casualties as the question has been questioning. this as prime minister netanyahu suffers a major political setback from his country s supreme court. i ll teak to ambassador mark regev and the democratic senator. and in tokyo, a five-man crew of air national guard claimed dead but all 400 on board a wide-body passenger plane escaping safely in just minutes after their plane exploded on the runway. and we ll look at the surge of respiratory illnesses over the holiday season. as flu, covid and rsv give families a rough start to 2024. and good day, everyone. i m andrea mitchell in washington. israel is starting the new year by launching intense attacks against central and southern gaza, even as the idf begins the process, it says, of bringing the first several thousand of its troops home. that includ
widespread daily protests against that overhaul helped take israel s eye off the ball, ahead of the october 7th attack. prime minister netanyahu s war cabinet is scheduled to meet in about two hours, he ll discuss among other things what he calls a post-hamas gaza. that s where we start with nbc s josh lederman in tel aviv. the reporting about it is now looking at local plans, palestinian plans to govern after the war. not an enhanced palestinian authority, which is what the u.s. has been proposing. and it s not clear whether israel is contemplating a two-state solution, something that prime minister netanyahu has said he s against. and something that president biden has said is a bottom line. reporter: that s right, andrea. this has really been the big question for weeks as israel has talked about eliminating hamas, is what actually comes after it and who would govern the gaza
they ve had a chance to build in the subterranean work, the tunnels, the bunkers and the underground forces, they ve had a chance to do this. we will take to this job. take the military mission, we will remove the power from gaza, and the truth is we don t have a choice. because we israelis, we simply refuse to live next to this terror enclave, in constant fear of murdering our people and our children. no people should live that way, and israelis do refuse to do so. we do have breaking news, i want to ask you about this strike in downtown beirut, according to our producer quoting the hamas political leader, a hamas spokesman saleh al luery, a senior official has been in a lebanon strike.
information that is unequivocal. we ve seen signs as hamas is ruling the gaza strip is now being challenged by israel. that there are cracks in their control over society. we re seeing more expressions of pent-up anger, not of israel, but lebanon itself. that hamas has brought the disaster of people of gaza. and with hamas discredited when this is over, that s a good field for maybe more moderate voices to grow. similar things happened at the end of the second world war. where does radicalism and extremism lead, that s a good basis for more pragmatic leadership to emerge. let s move on to the supreme court decision, it is a setback of the prime minister, but he tried to reverse that new act in the knesset and parliament. i think the prime minister
this is according to the hamas political leader. can you confirm that? i ve seen the reports. israel has not taken responsibility for this attack. but whoever did it, it must be clear, this was not an attack on the lebanese state. it was not an attack even on hezbollah, the terrorist organization. whoever did this, did a surgical strike against the hamas leadership. well, the clearly, it wasn t hezbollah, or another group rooted in beirut. that would take out a hamas leader also backed by iran. who, besides israel, could have done this? so, we can speculate if you like, but let s be clear, israel has not taken responsibility. and i think it should be clear, israel has, in the past, of course dealt with terrorists when they re in foreign countries. and the truth is i think you ll find my prime minister, my defense minister, my chief of