“Are we backing down or a brilliant maneuver? Today, we will try to understand what stands behind Trump’s deal with Iran. Iran has committed to hand over its highly enriched uranium to the United States and remove it from the soil of Iran. Trump updated the leaders from the Arab countries on a development in the negotiations with the Islamic Republic in a call described as very positive.”
“Trump spoke with the prime minister of Israel separately and said that the call went well. And right now on the surface it appears that an agreement is being made without Israel. And we will bring you the details of this agreement between the United States and Iran that is being revealed and leaked to the public.”
“Wow. So all of us here at Boots on the ground have a lot of questions. The entire team. Did Iran really agree to give up its enriched uranium? Will the United States lift the blockade on Iran’s ports and make some concessions on sanctions in order to allow Iran to sell oil freely? Is the rule of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards in Iran really winning? And will it continue to suppress the citizens of the Islamic Republic? So does the end of the war appear closer than ever? We will understand very soon.”
“Amir Pinto just came back from vacation with a very tense moment in this reality. And with me is Mati Shashani who replaced me throughout the last week and we are boots on the ground bringing you the whole truth about what is happening here in Israel and also the whole truth about what’s happening in our neighborhood the Middle East. And today is May 24 and we will bring you the whole story. So after a little break I’m back and I arrived to report to you on a very unclear moment in this reality, one that surprised even me. We have all been sitting for weeks assessing, preparing for the war to return here in Israel. The entire army was on maximum alert. And right now, at least as a citizen, there is a lot of confusion. But from my experience with the media, and this is the reason that we created boots on the ground, it is easy to be alarmed by the headlines about an American surrender to Iran. But reality is usually much more complex. So before jumping into conclusions, it is worth understanding what’s really driving Trump’s moves and how the global oil market is connected to all of this. So today, let’s put things in order. And as always, we will go over the whole truth. We do not know for certain whether an agreement has been signed between the United States and Iran and what its full details are. Experience teaches us that each side leaks the information that serves it best and that the first headlines are usually different from the more complex picture that emerges later.”
“On the surface, the moves look like an American retreat. But before passing judgment, it is worth examining the information carefully through a few rules of thumb. Right now, it seems that the agreement will prevent an escalation of the war and reduce the pressure on the global oil market. However, it is not clear whether it will lead to a lasting peace agreement that will also meet President Trump’s demands regarding the Iranian nuclear program. But first of all, let’s understand what is happening and what the facts are. Because according to what is emerging, the draft proposal was already finalized in the early hours of Saturday morning and it is expected to be published within 24 hours.”
“The source said that senior members of the negotiating teams including the Iranian parliament speaker Muhammad Baqer Qalibaf, the United States Vice President JD Vance, special envoy Steve Witkoff and the son-in-law, the American President Donald Trump, Jared Kushner approved the wording of the draft resolution. The document has now been transferred to the leaders of both countries for final approval. If the move succeeds, the agreement could turn the fragile six-week ceasefire into a permanent agreement, even though Trump himself has continued in recent days to hint that new strikes are still on the table. As mentioned, United States President Donald Trump wrote that he is in the Oval Office at the White House and noted that he held a call with President of Saudi Arabia, the president of the United Arab Emirates, and the president of Turkey, the president of Egypt, the king of Jordan as well as other representatives from those countries and also from Pakistan. He stated that an agreement has largely been signed subject to completion between the United States of America, the Islamic Republic of Iran and the various other countries as detailed. He also noted that he spoke with Prime Minister Netanyahu separately. Final aspects and details of the deal are now under discussion and will be published very soon. In addition to many other elements of this agreement, the strait of Hormuz will be opened.”
“But as usual in Iran, they published the entire opposite. The Iranian news agency later reported that the strait of Hormuz will remain under Tehran’s management. And according to the latest warning that was exchanged between the Islamic Republic and the United States, that’s the truth according to them. So this statement as mentioned contradicts the words of the American president who earlier declared that the strait would be opened as part of the emerging agreement. Regarding this, the same Iranian report stated that Trump’s announcement does not align with reality. The draft was transferred for final approval by the leaders of the United States and Iran. And if approved, it could turn the fragile ceasefire that has lasted for six weeks into a permanent agreement. This is despite the fact that President Trump continues to hint that the possibility of renewed strikes is still on the table.”
“The details of the emerging agreement have not yet been published, but we collected from leaks and rumors and following information about the clauses of this agreement that extending the ceasefire by 60 days. The ceasefire extension comes as part of the temporary arrangement until the sides will reach the final agreement. Second thing is to open the strait of Hormuz and to lift the blockade on Iran’s ports. The source noted that there is agreement on this point and that it was agreed that American and Iranian forces will remain in their current positions and the ships will be allowed to cross the straits of Hormuz. Removing restrictions on frozen Iranian funds, that’s the third option. The Pakistani source told El Arabia El Jaded that no final agreement has been reached on this issue despite the significant development that was achieved including Lebanon in this agreement. Iran claimed that they want the war between Islam to end and it is claimed that the agreement was reached on this issue. There will be a ceasefire in Lebanon, but Washington and Tehran support dialogue between Israel and Lebanon. Another point is the issue of the Iranian nuclear program. It will be discussed in the second stage of the dialogue which has already been agreed upon. The Pakistani proposal states that the talks on the Iranian nuclear issue with the United States will begin from the point where they were stopped. In addition, that news agency reported that as part of a possible memorandum of understanding between Iran and the United States, Washington will waive the sanctions on the Iranian oil. Here in Israel, there are concerns about warning that will not guarantee the dismantling of the nuclear program. This will not limit the missiles and will not stop the proxies from receiving support, money, military training, and leadership from Iran. The concern about the conduct of another American president, one who would be less friendly towards Israel, is also hovering. Because it is important to remember that from an Israeli point of view in the emerging agreement according to the Arab reports there does not appear to be any reference to Israel, to Iran’s ballistic missile systems, to their UAV production and to their proxy capabilities. Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis in Yemen and the pro-Iranian militias in Iraq. The Iranian issue is also been postponed to the second stage of the talks. So, will the agreement that emerges meet the test of Trump’s explicit commitments from the past? After all, the president stated several times that he would not allow Iran to become nuclear, that he would block the ballistic missile threat, and that he would stop the financing of terrorism by Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis in Yemen. In the past, he even referred to freeing the citizens of Iran from the rule of the madman and any agreement would be measured by its ability to fulfill these goals. So in a moment we will go deep into the issue and try to understand what is happening behind the scenes. The IDF is striking his terror infrastructure in southern Lebanon. Launchers and also weapons depots were destroyed. In addition, the IDF destroyed an underground Hezbollah route about 100 meters long. We will bring you the footage from the destruction of the terrorist infrastructure and all the details are coming very soon. The day before yesterday, the president of Lebanon delivered to Hezbollah the basic principles of a ceasefire with Israel. According to El Akbar, the proposal includes ending the military operations within 45 days and concentrating the discussion, the decisions of war and peace in the hands of the state alone. From Israel’s point of view, the central question is whether Lebanon is capable of enforcing the arrangement, the agreement with a terrorist organization.”
“And this week there was a lot of criticism of Israel regarding the treatment received by the detainees from the flotilla to Gaza while they were in Israeli custody. That’s a totally different arena that we’ll also discuss today in this report. And I have to say first of all that even Israel’s prime minister Mr. Benjamin Netanyahu condemned the Israeli minister Ben-Gvir on his behavior towards the detainees from the Gaza flotilla. But after they were sent from Israel to other countries, violent clashes were reported between flotilla activists who were deported from Israel and local security forces in Spain and in Greece. Violent clashes were also reported between Spanish police and activists from the Turkish Sumud Flotilla when they arrived at the airport in Bilbao. As part of the violent clashes, four activists were arrested for resisting and assaulting police officers. And at the same time, pro-Palestinian activists in Greece also clashed with the authorities at the airport. We will soon bring you the full story. And in addition, Washington is acting against the flotilla. Sanctions were imposed on activists who tried to reach the Gaza Strip. The United Nations Treasury Department announced sanctions against four entities connected to the Gaza flotilla. And in the background, Israel intercepted dozens of vessels that tried to violate the naval blockade. So, as you can see, there is a lot ahead of us. Let’s begin. I’m Amir Pinto. With me is Mati Shashani and we are boots on the ground bringing you the whole truth about what’s happening in Israel and this war against the revolutionary guards in Iran which is the head of the crumbling axis of evil in the Middle East.”
“Our senior Middle East correspondent Mati Shashani is here with us. Hey Mati, how are you doing? It’s good to be with you.”
“Shalom. It’s good to be with you. Not to say that I didn’t have the good time driving and visiting the north and the south of Israel, but it’s really good to be here back at Boots and the Ground.”
“Well, it’s okay to enjoy a vacation. No need to feel bad about it.”
“No, definitely. And it was also super cool to see some of our viewers in like remote places of this country that said that they keep watching us every single day. So thank you to all of you for for watching boots in the ground.”
“Mati, let me ask you, the first question is that what’s like so many stuff are happening. Are we about to reach a deal that will leave the ballistic missiles and the proxies of Iran like intact? Meaning that Iran can launch this war again against us in just a few more years.”
“It’s a tricky question. As you said like just two minutes ago, it’s all based on speculation. We don’t have actual official documents. What we’re witnessing right now, and this is important for people to remember, is what the United States government chooses to leak, what the Iranians choose to leak, and then on top of that, probably some of the mediators. And I would be surprised if also the Israeli government is not leaking information. Why? Because everyone wants to change the conversation. Everyone wants to push it in its direction. Every criticism you hear is someone who’s been given information for the purpose of them speaking against or for the agreement. So with that in, you know, in the back of our heads, I mean, yes, an agreement is very tricky right now. It’s tricky because what’s being leaked and what’s what we’re told is going to happen, well, some of it is contradicting, but from what we know, it will not completely debilitate the Iranian, let’s call it ballistic missile program. It will not fully remove their enriched uranium. The Trump White House is saying it will. Marco Rubio, he came out and said they will have no bomb, but if you’re not taking all the enriched uranium, then you don’t really know what’s going to happen afterwards. And the fear here in Jerusalem, the fear in Israel is that it will be another iteration of what we experienced in the past of one of these anti-proliferation treaties of an international supervisor, whatever kind of version of things of what we had in the Obama administration and before and after it. The Iranians are really good at getting away from agreements. They’re just good at it. They have a longer, what’s the word I’m looking for, resilience to pain than most western countries do and they’re willing to suffer for a year, for two years, for three years as long as they know that at the end of the process they’ll get back to it. A couple of people that I really appreciate when it comes to analyzing the Iranian regime, they say time and time again, look, we can’t through Western non-Muslim eyes understand how these people operate. They understand that they can draw out time. They understand that they need to, by the way, the name of the flotilla you were quoting, Sumud, means sticking to the ground or, what’s the word? Fighting through the hardship to sort of stick to it. And it’s something that comes up a lot when you hear in Arabic what Muslim organizations say. What they say is often, ‘We’ll fight till the end. We’ll outlast the infidels,’ which is us by the way, us the Jews, us the Christians, you know, we’ll outlast the infidels. We’ll get back the land that was taken from us. You know, they have this whole world of terminology that most people in the West are not familiar with and don’t understand. I’m under the impression that the Trump White House does understand. I’m under the impression that they fully understand how the Iranians operate and still they’re in a position where they’re not going to conquer Iran. That’s not really on the table. And any further military action, we’ve talked about this for several months now at this point, any further military action, it’s not going to change the fundamental facts. So, you’re only left with fight a war of attrition or sign an agreement. Now, for Israel, who gets its oil from sources that don’t come through the strait of Hormuz, who manufactures its own food, who has an economy that’s based mostly on exporting technology and not necessarily goods, unless the goods are weapons in many cases, it’s not the end of the world if the strait of Hormuz is closed and we fight a war of attrition. If you’re a Gulf state, if you are the United States armed forces that has several carrier groups and an enormous amount of military assets, a war of attrition is something that you don’t want to have on your table. You want to avoid that almost at any cost. So, we’re not exactly in the same agenda and the same perspective when it comes to this conversation. And this is where things are tricky right now. I mean, I look at this with huge concern both personally and on a national level. Israeli politicians, Israeli defense has spoken about this with huge concern in recent days. Prime Minister Netanyahu has been quiet, which just shows he’s a politically intelligent person, which we know he’s not going to speak against Trump in the middle of this kind of negotiation. It’s a tricky situation, and I think a lot of people in Israel are looking at this and saying, ‘Look, from our perspective, so they say, well, the Iranians will go back to wars. Like, how’s that any different than the reality we’ve had?’ We might as well as a country, we’ll fight it out. You know, we’d rather continue with this war of bleeding out their economy and putting maximum pressure on them, but it’s not we’re not the ones suffering most from it. The Gulf States, the hundreds of ships that are stuck in the strait of Hormuz, the countries around the world that are running out of oil and gas at the gas pump, they’re suffering much more than we are, at least in this perspective. So, it’s a very complicated situation and I don’t like where it’s going, but sadly, we don’t have a better alternative. That’s the reality of it.”
“I’ll add one last thing which you were just in northern Israel and I’d say once you visited in northern Israel the thought of tying together with the Iran agreement sounds absurd. I think I’d be interested to hear your opinion. I just felt like how can you tie these two things? That’s over there and these people are on our fence. We can’t let them continue fighting us. I mean that’s simply impossible. I think that’s something Israel needs to insist over or really push for for that agenda. What’s your opinion on that?”
“First of all, listen, Israel and Lebanon were in this ceasefire agreement for a very long time, but I was up in the north and I wasn’t on the border, but I could hear the explosions and there is a war going between the IDF against the terrorist organization. Why? Because the terrorist organization still is acting to create their offensive positions to restore their weapons caches to continue and dig their tunnels and you were in one of these tunnels like just I would say two weeks ago in a terror tunnel.”
“I think it’s very important that you share with our viewers what’s the danger for real. I mean so that they will understand if there is a terror tunnel 500 meters from their house would they want to reach an agreement and just let it stay there forever.”
“I think that’s a great point. I was up there was last Thursday so like a week and a half ago now. The segment by the way just aired on Saturday. You can find it on our YouTube channel. But that’s not the only tunnel that we’ve seen and I think that’s the alarming thing. I went across the border and this is a village that’s about three miles from the Israeli border. They built into it a very very vast network of tunnel systems full of generators full of bombs full of electronic surveillance mechanisms all of it to be able to attack Israel and I think this is a point that people need to understand doesn’t represent the Lebanese people, it is a foreign entity, I mean in the most absolute sense it’s an export of the Iranian ideology who’s paying people in Iran, sorry in Lebanon, to fight on behalf of Iran. That’s what they’re doing. And you go in there, they’ve taken these villages, they’ve turned them into essentially battle stations for Hezbollah terrorists. And every village that you travel through, I should specify, every Shia village that you travel through in southern Lebanon is full of terrorism infrastructure. Let me throw a number at you. I was there with the chief of staff for the one of the northern divisions that controls that entire area, the 91st division. And I’m talking to him and I say, ‘Well, what percentage of the houses have terrorism infrastructure?’ And he thinks and he’s like, ‘Ah, in this village, it was roughly half.’ I said, ‘What do you mean roughly half?’ He says, ‘Half? This isn’t a 50-house village. This is a multi-thousand house village.’ Hundreds of homes in a village or possibly several thousand of them have infrastructure built into them. Cameras, tunnel systems, weapons storage, Hezbollah operatives living in the homes, anti-tank nests within the homes. I mean, it’s hard to comprehend until you see it with your eyes and you understand how corrupting the enemy we’re fighting against is. And in that sense, you look at what’s happening up north. By the way, we’ve been up north several times, both me and you, with our team in the last couple of years. And this isn’t something unique case. Everywhere you go in Lebanon, there’s vast terrorism infrastructure. And I want to say this clearly, they never diverted any of their money to building after-school care. They never diverted any of the resources, the vast resources given to them by the Iranians to do anything legal. You know, they didn’t build hockey fields. They didn’t build basketball courts. They didn’t build wall-climbing facilities. There is nothing positive that they did in those countries except for building terrorism infrastructure. Yes, they supply some electricity to the villages mainly because of the fact that Lebanon is so broken as a country. They don’t have a good flow of electricity, but much of it is used for infrastructure. And when you see that and I saw it firsthand, you see how far the IDF has gone in Lebanon and still tries to destroy the state of Israel. It is abundantly clear that this agreement should not connect between Hezbollah, Lebanon and Iran. It should not be connected. We should crush Hezbollah as an organization completely and fully. And when we’re done doing that, it’s good to talk about rebuilding Lebanon. But Lebanon as a country is not able to stop Hezbollah. Therefore, there’s no reason to talk about a ceasefire agreement with them. The Lebanese government has no problem with us. They want to talk to us. They have had their lives threatened by Hezbollah because they publicly stated they wanted to talk and negotiate with Israel. Super tricky situation and I have to say this and I really don’t envy the Trump advisers right now. I don’t envy the Israeli prime minister war cabinet. It’s a really complicated situation where there is no clear solution. There’s no obvious solution to this problem that isn’t just this really drawn out war. And at the same time, look at the evil that we’re facing. Look how much money they’ve spent on this. It’s alarming. I just pray that they make the wise and the correct choices. That’s what I pray.”
“Definitely. And plus, you have an entire region of Israel that is still unsafe. You have communities that are still being rebuilt after dozens of anti-tank rockets that were fired at them that we visited also. And on top of that, as you were going to the north, there was a drone, a suicide drone that exploded inside an Israeli community that was operated by the terrorist organization.”
“Talking about the attack.”
“Exactly. Exactly. Let me say something depressing. The reason Lebanon drones are not exploding inside Jewish communities, there’s only one reason for that right now is because they’re busy fighting against the IDF deep in Lebanon. That’s the only reason. The minute the IDF, and people might not understand this, the topography of Lebanon is incredibly dramatic. So what would be in a flat area, nothing, like a 10-minute drive in Lebanon, you’re going up and down mountain ranges. So even 10 kilometers, 15 kilometers is a substantial distance in the southern part of the country not in all areas but in most of them. If the IDF was not 10 kilometers from the border or in some places farther than that from the Israeli border with Lebanon, if we were not there, they would be on the border launching anti-tank missiles against Israeli school buses; that’s what they would be doing. How do we know this? Because they’ve done it in the past. If we were not inside Lebanon, they would be launching mortars at the Jewish communities in the north. And by the way, just not just Jewish, also the Jews and also the Israeli Arabs. They would be launching missiles. They’d be launching anti-tank missiles. They would be doing everything they can to kill civilians in the country. And it’s really a problematic situation where the only way we can prevent them is from holding on to the ground in Lebanon. Our end goal is not doing that. Our end goal is to destroy and to have the Lebanese people build up that country. And that’s by the way something I haven’t heard mentioned at all in these negotiations about what the nation-building effort is going to look like in the day after the ceasefire because as far as we’re considered in Israel, Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, building up those countries is hugely important. Not just in the short term, also definitely long term for the lives of our kids, for the lives of our grandkids, building those countries up. That is the number one task that needs to be dealt with once the Iranian threat, I should say current threat, is dealt with.”
“Exactly. Mati, lots of stuff that we can pray for in this situation, but as you said in the beginning, I think that we do not know the agreement details. It’s all headlines that are leaked. And what we learned since day one of this war is that this is a war for the truth, a war for narratives. The Iranians want to point this as a success in front of their own people, in front of the region, and then the Americans and Trump wants to point this as a success internally towards the American people and the allies of the United States.”
“We’ll see. We’ll wait and see what the actual implications are. And also, we need to remember that this agreement is not between Israel and Iran, just between the United States and the Islamic Republic. So, I hope that the Israeli Air Force and the IDF has some loopholes in order to defend ourselves in this agreement and we’re not tied down to what the Americans are saying.”
“I’ll just end and say that we really are in a position where there’s no obvious solution that really fixes all the problems that doesn’t exist and hasn’t existed in some time. And we should be praying and people should at home be praying for our leadership to find a creative solution to this and also long-term to build the structures that solve these problems because they’re not short-term problems. There is no one bomb or one jet fighter or one military operation that will solve even a single one of these many problems that we face. They’re all multi-step processes. They’re all multinational solutions. They’re all things that last longer and take longer than a single term of a president or prime minister. That’s really the truth and we need to look at those type of problems and build towards those kind of solutions.”
“And I would say we need to also pray for the Iranian people because I bet that they are feeling very frustrated and confused now after so many months of war and hopes that the regime will change, collapse now internally in Iran. I bet that the regime is just celebrating a success and defeating the west and defeating the United States and now they will double down and start looking internally at who went to march against us three months ago and we didn’t arrest him or hanged him in the middle of the street or something like that. So I would say we need to pray for the Iranian people because they are the ones that are going to be left alone in Iran with this evil regime.”
“Absolutely. Well, thank you so much, Mati.”
“Thank you.”
“This really helped me catch up on what’s happening in this region and we’ll see you again in just a few hours for our evening report.”
“Thank you.”
“Bye.”
“Now, let’s get back to the news because in southern Lebanon, forces from the mountains brigade, brigade 810 under division 210 entered the Mount Dov area once more and operated against the Hezbollah terrorist infrastructure. Together with the Yahalom unit, the forces located and destroyed an underground route about 100 meters long. And at the same time, the Israeli air force struck loaded launchers, weapons depots, and military structures in southern Lebanon that used to advance fire against the IDF forces and against the Israeli civilians. So, how is it possible that while Israel is still dismantling tunnels, launchers, and explosive drones, people are already talking about a regional agreement that could also stop the fighting in Lebanon? This is exactly where we need to stop and understand the wider picture because today’s story is not only about a tunnel in Mount Dov. It is not only about the strait of Hormuz. It is not only about the question of whether Trump is retreating or maneuvering. The story is how Iran is trying to turn every arena into a bargaining chip; the nuclear program as one card, Hormuz as the second card, Hezbollah as the third card, and the frozen money as a fourth card. Each one looks separately like a clause in negotiations. Together, they make up the method of operation of the entire region in Tehran. And in recent days, Hezbollah has continued to operate explosive drones against IDF forces in southern Lebanon. In one incident, an IDF soldier was lightly wounded. In another incident, a defense ministry contractor Amir Hajirat from was killed by an explosive.”
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