Would Gazans rise up against Hamas? - with Amos Harel
Today we get an update on the IDF operation in South Gaza, what Israel is learning about the Gaza tunnel system, what Israelis are learning through further de-briefing of the returned Israeli hostages, and what to make of reports of Palestinian civilians' growing frustrations with Hamas. We also wanted to discuss the tragic loss of Gal Eisenkodt and what it says about Israeli society.
Amos Harel has been the military correspondent and defense analyst for Israel's Haaretz newspaper for 25 years. He is among the most well-sourced and thoughtful journalists and analysts covering Israeli security affairs inside Israel. Prior to his current position, Amos spent four years as night editor for the Haaretz Hebrew print edition, and from 1999-2005 he was the anchor on a weekly Army Radio program about defense issues.
Along with frequent "Call Me Back" guest and Fauda co-creator Avi Issacharoff, Amos co-wrote a book about the Second Intifada, called "The Seventh War: How we won and why we lost the war with the Palestinians", which was published in 2004 and translated into several languages, including Arabic.
Amos and Avi also co-wrote "34 Days: Israel, Hezbollah and the War in Lebanon", about the war of 2006, which was published in 2008.
Transcript
DISCLAIMER: THIS TRANSCRIPT HAS BEEN CREATED USING AI TECHNOLOGY AND MAY NOT REFLECT 100% ACCURACY.
[00:00:00] An elderly woman was asked yesterday what happens and said well, all the food is downstairs. It's in the tunnels because this is going to Hamas's mouths and not ours. The fear from Hamas is real. They've ruled Gaza with an iron fist for the last 16 years. But you don't have bread to eat if you don't have drinking water.
If you don't have shelter and they actually blame Hamas, then at one point or another, Hamas could not rule anymore. I think it's in the cards
as Israel prosecutes its war. Now in South Gaza, we had a lot of questions, including reports of growing frustrations from Gazen civilians. being directed at Hamas. What are the implications of those reports? What are we learning now from reports about the released hostages and their [00:01:00] debriefings? And we also had questions about the death of Gal Eisenkot, an Israeli combat soldier who we just learned was killed in Gaza.
And the loss is tragic for all the obvious reasons, but is also significant because he's the son of Gadi Eisenkot, who is a former IDF Chief of Staff, and is a civilian now, and a politician, and a political leader, and a member. Of Israel's war cabinet post october 7th to answer these questions and help us understand what's going on We called up amos harrell who has been the military correspondent and defense analyst for israel's haaretz newspaper for 25 years He's among the most Well sourced and thoughtful journalists and analysts covering Israeli security affairs from inside Israel and prior to his current position, Amos spent about four years as the night editor for Haaretz's Hebrew print edition.
And he also was the anchor of a weekly army radio program about defense issues. [00:02:00] Amos Harel on whether or not Gazans will revolt against Hamas. This is Call Me Back.
I'm pleased to welcome back to this podcast my friend Amos Harel from Haaretz, who comes to us from Tel Aviv, uh, tragically after receiving some horrible news about Gal Eizenkot. Uh, Amos, can you share with us what we know so far, uh, about who Gal Eizenkot was, who his father is? and the significance of this news as it's being learned by, by Israelis.
Yes, um, Gadi Eizenkot is of course, uh, former chief of staff of the Israeli army. Um, uh, ended his military career in two thousand and, uh, [00:03:00] nineteen and became a politician, uh, about a year ago. One of the leaders of the Israeli opposition. I think he's number three or four at Benny Gantz's party But more significant than that Got a rather popular center centrist Politician and somebody with gravitas somebody who people listen to regarding Military and strategic affairs.
It was a very popular chief of staff And after a lot of deliberations, he decided to join politics and found himself during the last year or so warning quite constantly about the possible strategic outcome of the crisis we were entangled in regarding Netanyahu's attempts for a judicial overhaul. Then, once the war, uh, started, it was Eisenkot, along with Gantz, who not only joined the coalition at Netanyahu's request, but actually came to save him, [00:04:00] more or less, at the War Cabinet.
Uh, Eisenkot, more than anybody else, became the leading member of the War Cabinet, the most important, uh, voice, except for, um, Uh, Netanyahu and the defense minister, Yoav Galant, and somebody who kept challenging, uh, the line of thinking regarding Hamas in Gaza, regarding Lebanon, and so on. Uh, Eisenkot could be quite hawkish on military affairs, and yet he's always aware of the bigger strategic picture.
And Netanyahu evidently is not very fond of him, but he knew he needed somebody like Eisenkot around him. for the deliberations and for the decision making regarding such a huge crisis. Now, what happened today is that Gantz and Eisenkot were visiting one of the IDF's division headquarters at the Gaza border.
They do this quite often. They're both former chiefs of staff. [00:05:00] of the, uh, IDF. Uh, so they were quite fond of, uh, visiting the troops and the commanders and also getting the, uh, you know, a sort of, uh, um, very direct impression of what's going on. And all of these people, of course, all of those officers at the headquarters are their uh, formal colleagues, people who served under them for years.
So once they were there, Um, there was a report of an incident at the Jebalia refugee camp where this specific division is fighting right now. And it turned out that, uh, one fighter, one soldier from, uh, an elite reservist, uh, commando unit had been killed from an IED. And as, as it happened, um, Eisenkot learned that this was his son, Gal Meir, a 25 year old.
from the city of Herzliya. So, a huge personal tragedy, but also something to do with the general crisis we're facing now. And, um, Eisenkot is not the first senior, um, officer [00:06:00] who, um, lost a son in this, uh, war. There were three, uh, brigadier generals, reservists, who lost their sons on October 7th. Uh, soldiers who came to fight and try to save the kibbutzim.
along the Gaza border. So, Isenkot is the fourth one. Uh, this happens quite a lot because in Israel sons tend to follow the path, the footprints of their, the footpath of their fathers, and in many cases if fathers serve in combat units so do their sons and sometimes daughters as well. And this, of course, became tragic during this war when so much is on the line and so many people Are, uh, at the first line of, uh, fighting.
Um, I always say to Americans, uh, You guys are fond of saying that there are six degrees of separation in the world. In Israel, there's one degree of separation. Everybody knows everybody. So everybody is touched by what had happened since, especially on [00:07:00] October 7th, but since October 7th, and I think everybody has, um, people they know that already lost, uh, dear ones.
Uh, but this is, I think it, in a sense, it's a personal tragedy that's involved in a in a national tragedy, and I think that a lot of people will take this to heart. A lot of people, uh, would be very, very saddened by this news. Uh, perhaps because Isengard is also quite a popular figure. Somebody who's always restrained, um, not a demagogue.
speaks quite bluntly about different issues, is considered, um, very clean, not corrupt, somebody who's, um, really, really, really concerned about Israel's future, and suddenly he's facing, uh, such a, a huge personal tragedy. I think it will affect, uh, the nation at large. There were, uh, to, to your point, there, there are a number of, of children of, career military officers who [00:08:00] follow in their parents footsteps.
But then just in the context of reservists being called up, you have people from all walks of life. I mean, I, I was struck, our mutual friend, Avi Sakharov, obviously just lost, uh, someone very close to him. His, his stepdaughter's boyfriend was killed. There was another, I'm, I'm, I'm using Avi's world as an example.
There was another member of the production team for, for FAUDA. that was called up and was serving the combat position and was killed. And the idea that whether it's the political, the children of political or military leaders or people who work in this case in the television world or connected to what in the US we would call elites, popular culture elites, business elites, tech elites, in a moment like this all walks of Israeli life are a part of this experience and I think this is just another example of that.
This will get more attention than most, but the reality is it's everywhere. Yes, it's very, very different from the [00:09:00] States. A, because we're such a small country and a small society in the end, and B, because there's still, um, um, this is an army of conscripts. Um, it's true that to go and stay in a combat unit, you need to be a sort of a volunteer.
But other than that, everybody has to serve. So it's very different than the experience of the elites. In, in the States, forgive me for, uh, saying this, uh, because I don't think many people who went to Ivy League, uh, universities, for instance, have, uh, children, um, who served in Iraq or Afghanistan, not as many as in Israel.
In Israel, it's quite different, although I don't think it's, uh, apparent everywhere. For instance, I'll make the distinction between, uh, former generals on the one hand and some of Israel's politicians. On the other hand, it's true that, uh, these are not entirely different groups. Uh, but you can see some politicians who are not worried at all about the personal outcome.
Um, [00:10:00] regarding this war, for instance, ultra Orthodox, uh, ministers. But this is not the same for people like Gadi Eizenkot. Yeah, although I, I've been moved since this war, which is something I haven't seen in a long time in Israel, is even the ultra Orthodox, the Haredim. Yes, they don't have children on the front lines, but they are contributing, many of them, pockets of them are contributing.
In ways that we haven't seen before. I'd say pockets is the right term. There is some involvement now some kind of Movement among young Haredim to actually go to the army and join the army, but this is not significant yet It's a sentiment right now. It hasn't changed Israeli society yet I think it will require a change later on because Because of this sacrifice, I think there will be more of a demand for ultra Orthodox to share part of the burden.
This may change Israel in the future, hasn't happened yet, and although there were some who [00:11:00] volunteered, and of course there's Zaka, the people who collect, uh, volunteered to collect body parts after attacks, which is, yeah, yeah, which is, which is a big deal. It's a very delicate, uh, kind of, kind of look. The emotional toll on them.
That's true. October 7th is unbelievable. Having said that, I don't think that they represent all of ultra Orthodox society or that this is enough for the expectations of the other parts of Israeli society from the ultra Orthodox. But yes, I think there's more of a sense of unity than before. We'll have to say, to see if this remains in the future.
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I want to talk to you about, uh, I want to talk to you about where we are in the War fighting. So Israel's primarily focused now on fighting in South Gaza versus North Gaza. Uh, can you just start by Explaining, I guess, how the fighting operationally is [00:12:00] different in the South than it was in the North.
I mean, in the press over here in the United States, we're constantly being told, alright, Israel's post seven day pause, Israel's now focused on the South. They've completed, more or less, what they need to do in the North, now they're going to the South. What does that mean? Why is that so much different?
It's actually not, um, I wouldn't say it's not true, but it's not entirely accurate, this description, because actually there are still two divisions fighting in the northern part and still busy fighting Hamas battalions or Brigades in, uh, two specific areas, uh, the neighborhood of Saja'ia on the east of, uh, Gaza Town, of Gaza City, and, uh, Jabalia Refugee Camp, uh, which we mentioned before.
On top of that, for the last three days, we've seen a massive Israeli incursion into the Hanunis area in the south, which is, of course, different than what we've encountered in the north, [00:13:00] mostly because not only is Hanunis built differently, less of, um, high rise buildings and so on, Uh, but also it's extremely populated right now because as we mentioned in our, um, um, discussions in the past, Israel, of course, pushed about a million Palestinians, demanded that they leave the northern part of Gaza Strip and move to the south, the civilians, in order to them, for them to, to stay out of, uh, harm.
So now you have close to two million people in half, uh, the space of what used to be known as the Gaza Strip. And, uh, it's a very different situation. So Israel has to fight under these circumstances. It's trying to push some of the population now to what they call, not safe zones, but safer zones, to, um, convince people to leave again.
But this is much harder than, um, it was in the past. And this is after both sides are exhausted. The Palestinians themselves have been through two months of hell. This is something that was brought [00:14:00] upon them. by Hamas leadership in that decision to strike with this horrific massacre on October 7th. But the price to pay from the Palestinian point of view is, of course, huge.
Now, there's heavy fighting going on. It's mostly focused on the center of Khan Yunus and close to the refugee camp. The refugee camp is significant because this is where Yigit Sinwar and Mohamed Def The two, uh, leaders of, uh, Hamas in the Gaza Strip actually grew up with. And, and to be clear, yeah, sorry.
Just to be clear, before you get into their backgrounds, the, and the architects of OC of October 7th. Exactly. Uh, Al So they are Mm-Hmm. , yeah. Al is the leader of the military wing. Somebody who spent 23 years in, uh, Israeli jails and 22 years and was released at the Shali deal as part of the Shali deal in 2011, became, um, this was the deal.
Israel, for our listeners, just we refer to it a lot, the Shalit deal that Amos is referring to 2011, Israel to get back one Israeli being held [00:15:00] hostage, Gilad Shalit, Israel returned or released over 1, 000 prisoners, Palestinian prisoners from Israeli prisoners, prisons including Yehia Sinuar, who was the architect of October 7th.
And many other terrorists with Israeli blood on their hands. These were not, um, uh, small timers. These were, uh, people who were involved in, uh, massive, uh, bloodshed. And so Sinuar and Def are the leaders of this massacre and the leaders of this policy. It's believed that they, um, Left Gaza City before the Israelis arrived and it's assumed that there are somewhere around Khan Yunis Of course underground of course hiding perhaps with some kind of human shelter around them whether it's Human shield around them whether it's a civilian Palestinian population or even some Israeli hostages So it would be very difficult to actually hit them something that [00:16:00] Israel has already declared.
It's about to do and it's It's part of the goals of this, uh, massive military operation, but Israel would keep on trying. Um, I'm not sure again whether they're still there or perhaps they've moved to Rafah, even more to the south or somewhere else, but they're hiding underground and Israel is spending a lot of time and effort, uh, trying to find them and kill them.
This would be in a way for Netanyahu, this would be a symbolic way out. He cannot really win this war. It's very, very difficult. Uh, considering what has happened, uh, two months ago, but if he's able to both inflict a lot of pain and damage on Hamas and Gaza. and also, uh, kills some of the leaders of Hamas, this would be, uh, massive in the eyes of most Israeli, uh, voters.
So that's a big deal for him, and if we go back to that famous, uh, advice given to President Johnson, uh, regarding Vietnam, he could declare victory and pull out if this [00:17:00] happens. And again, hasn't happened yet, and it's hard to tell whether this, um, kind of scenario would actually, uh, evolve. This War has been fought so far on three different planes and the air on the ground and, and probably the most challenging plane is the, is what's underground, the underground tunnel system.
And you and I have talked about it when, when Avi Zakharov has been on this podcast, we've talked about this underground tunnel system. What, what has the IDF learned so far about the tunnel system since the war began? About two months ago more than anything else. We've learned that we didn't know enough and this danger was known to us Ever since more or less the disengagement around 2004 2005 and this became Hamas's national project by 2011 2012.
If we go back to recent history, of course, [00:18:00] the massive operation Pillar of Defense 2014 was about the tunnels, about Hamas attempts to use what we call defensive tunnels to strike at Israeli targets along the border. And Israel was obsessed with that danger at that time, but it seems nine years later that we still don't know enough.
We don't have enough intelligence about their defensive tunnel, a system which is called the Metro. Um, there are hundreds and hundreds of miles dug underneath Gaza City and the other towns. And they call it the Metro because it's like a, it's like a subway. It's like a subway system in a major American or European city.
That's true. It's um, perhaps not as um, you know, there's less space to to move around. But other than that, it's It's, it's extremely, uh, complicated. And Hamas is using this not only for shelter for its, uh, terrorists and for its leaders, but also for everything else, whether it's to hide weapons, uh, and whether it's to apparently to hide those hostages, uh, now.
So Israel has been [00:19:00] destroying both tunnels and shafts, uh, by the hundreds, uh, some of them. Were blown up there was a story in the wall street journal a few days ago about israel using seawater to flood some of those Tunnels, i'm not sure how successful this is. So there are all kinds of the the whole Startup nation that you invented a long time ago is the whole concept is used now For the same kind of, uh, for the same kind of thinking, you know, uh, short term, very quick, um, um, imaginative solutions to big problems.
Moving fast and breaking things, if you'd like. But is this as successful as we hoped? I don't think so. Uh, we are destroying a lot of these tunnels, but sometimes it's only parts of tunnels. And from what we've seen, uh, until now, we haven't been able to make life unbearable. For Hamas. And in the end, we've mentioned that before, Hamas acts like a guerrilla organization.
A [00:20:00] guerrilla organization does not fight an army on the army's terms. And when Israel says, okay, we didn't lose too many soldiers. We managed to occupy large chunks of the Gaza Strip. The question remains how. How much Hamas is actually in, um, interested in engagement, in military engagement? Or are they just keeping the hell away, waiting for Israel to lose, uh, its patience and for the army to pull out and then they'll just, uh, come out of the tunnels?
It happened before. If you look at Sinuol. in Operation Guardian of the Walls in 2021. This is exactly what he did. He hid underground for nine or ten days and declared victory once the war was over. The huge difference, of course, is that he never had that success in 2021 of the massive strike and the massive massacre, on the one hand, and also that Israel didn't bother to enter.
In retrospect, we know that we should have done this years ago. The fact that we let this terrorist monster entity [00:21:00] named Hamas to keep growing and growing and growing is with what led us to the disaster of October 7th and why we're stuck in such a problematic strategic arena if you'd like right now.
Given the complexity of what was built underground, the metro, from an infrastructure and a construction and a capital expenditure operation. It seems to me it would have to have been elaborate. How did Israel not know this was being built? I mean, it just seems like it acquired lots of money, lots of logistics, lots of equipment, lots of workers.
It's, it's perplexing to me. I don't think Israel didn't know. I think Israel didn't spend enough time and effort to discover everything that needed to be known. about the system. The concept was known, uh, many of those tunnels, uh, we knew where they were situated. We attacked some of them before, uh, but I don't think what I keep hearing from officers coming back from the fighting in Gaza is, [00:22:00] yes, we had a grasp of where this was leading, of what Hamas was doing there, but we never knew that it was that big, that it was that complicated, that sophisticated, and that so much dependent on it.
And so now we're trying to gain more and more intelligence, but I think that some of the information is still missing. And of course, what we know now is that Sinuol has prepared for this day for 10 or 12 years. It took time. They tried before, it was never that successful. Uh, the fact that they did manage to, um, go ahead with the operation and kill so many Israelis and also, uh, kidnap so many hostages has changed the equation completely.
And this is what, what forced us in. Now, some people are saying this was all pre planned. Uh, Sinuol was betting on Israel to come. inside Gaza and retaliate, and he thought that he would have the upper hand there. And this didn't, apparently this didn't happen. And yet, although they prepared all kinds of traps and all kinds of methods in which to strike at the Israelis, it's quite clear that the [00:23:00] Israelis have the upper hand when it comes to the actual fighting in Gaza.
We're paying a huge price, a high price in our, from our view, or our perspective, as I mentioned. I mentioned Gad Eisenkot, and there are many others. There are two other soldiers whose, whose deaths were declared today. But in the end, uh, about 80 soldiers lives were lost since Israel began this, uh, ground incursion into Gaza.
There are thousands and thousands of Hamas terrorists who died, uh, during the same time. Of course, Hamas attitude towards military loss is quite different. If you define everything as, uh, uh, istishad, as the death of a martyr, If you look at this through religious lenses or religious Islamist terms, then you know, perhaps death is not such a huge thing.
For Israelis, it's a very big thing. I'm assuming most of Hamas's some 40, 000 militants or terrorists, its [00:24:00] fighters, are inside those tunnels. How effective is the fighting that's taking place above ground? Why are the IDF ground forces not entering the tunnels now? I, I think there are less, uh, fighters on Hamas's side.
I think it's assumed that there were somewhere between 20 to 25, 000 who were considered effective fighters. And in the end, in spite of their military success on October 7th, I wouldn't, um, overestimate their fighting capabilities. What happened, as we discussed before, was this This huge flood that came through the, the, the fence.
And since Israeli forces were outnumbered, this led to the disaster. But if you look at the way they fought through their GoPro videos and so on, you don't see professionals. If you compare that to Ghadwan forces, the elite forces, uh, that Hezbollah has on the Lebanese border, it's nothing of that kind.
These are, many of them are hoodlums carrying weapons and so on, but [00:25:00] not. Professional soldiers and most of their relatively, uh, better forces, what we'll call the the Nuhba forces Most of the many of them died either on October 7th There were more than a thousand, uh, Palestinian casualties during the attack Their terrorists were killed on Israeli soil and thousands a few thousand others actually were killed Later on during the fighting once israel entered the gaza strip once the idf entered Um, so I think what's left of their force is perhaps Less experience and less willing to fight.
It's not enough for us to win this at this time. Uh, but this is the reality. Now, regarding fighting inside tunnels, very, very hard to do. We haven't seen Israeli forces entering tunnels in order to fight. We saw them searching tunnels, for instance, underneath Shifa Hospital or on Tizi Hospital, to make a point, to show the international press how Hamas was using Uh, those areas under [00:26:00] hospitals and so on.
But we haven't seen an attempt to fight through the tunnels. I think the general line of thinking is that this is too costly and too dangerous. What Israel needs to do is find a more effective way of hitting, uh, whatever happens under, underground. And they're searching for all kinds of methods. They're gradually improving, but this is not a game changer yet.
The best outcome would have been for Hamas to be forced out of the tunnels. for, uh, Hamas leadership more than anything else, um, Sinoir and his gang, but also for other, uh, terrorists to feel suffocated or strangled in those having less oxygen or whatever inside those tunnels and to be forced out and then to fight the IDF on its own terms.
It hasn't happened yet and the general assumption is that, uh, They have enough time that they're preparing to stay on the ground and that we're still, they can still live there in spite of the conditions being more problematic than before after two [00:27:00] months. I want to ask what may seem like an obvious question or Or the answer may be obvious, but I just want to I just want to ask it based on your sources Is the IDF confident that that Sinwar and Def are in Gaza?
As far as I can tell, yes. I don't think the Egypt would help them get away in the end We probably discussed that in the past. There's a huge gap between what is what Egypt and Jordan and other Arab Sunni regimes are saying publicly and what they actually feel about this Crisis in the end. They're rooting for Israel.
They want Israel to destroy Hamas. They see Hamas has this cancerous tumor on the Islamic Brotherhood, which they see as well as a danger to their different regimes. So I don't think the Egyptians would help him. Uh, to, to escape, and I find it hard to believe that, uh, somebody like Sinwar could escape without the Egyptians noticing.
I can't [00:28:00] say that this is, um, no, that this is, uh, off limits, uh, completely, that this cannot be done, but the general assumption among everybody is that, for the time being, he's still there somewhere. And I think they have a general notion of where, more or less, he's hiding. But then again, the fact that so many civilians are around him, and especially from an Israeli perspective.
If he's holding hostages around him, that makes it a lot harder, uh, to do. When I asked Israeli planners why are you going to Khan Yunis, they said part of this is symbolic, of course. Part of this has to do with the fact that we need to address the problems and the dangers in the southern part of the Gaza Strip.
But it's also about Uh, moving things around. If Sinuol is surprised by the fact that the Israelis are close to his hometown, that the Israelis are actually working very, very quickly, and that there are Israeli tanks shooting in the streets above apparently above where he's hiding, [00:29:00] perhaps he'll make that mistake that he hasn't made before.
And if he does, I assume that this time the Shin Bet and the Israeli Air Force would be there uh, to deal with him. Uh, there were missed opportunities in the past, I should mention, uh, that he, um, suffered from brain cancer while he was a prisoner in Israel, and that Israeli doctors saved his life. So apparently he's not feeling too much gratitude at the moment.
Uh, in, in terms of, uh, how Israel's fighting in the South, can you just provide a little more granularity on what, given the, the, the incredible population density in the South? There was population density before, and then there were all these Gazan Palestinians who've moved south because of the war fighting in the north because they were told to move to the south, there's even more population in the south.
Can you just describe the lengths the IDF is going to, to communicate with Palestinian civilians as it wages its war in the south? Look, [00:30:00] they're throwing leaflets, uh, there are all kinds of radio transmissions, they break into, uh, radio and TV, uh, broadcasts on the Palestinian side, uh, they send text messages.
I visited the center which deals with that, there are about 12 or 15 officers whose job in the last two months is to move population around in Gaza in order to save it. Uh, they're based in the Southern Command in Beersheba. These are experienced people of all kinds of professions who are, um, becoming more and more professional at moving people around.
This is something that hasn't happened, I think, in the past in any previous war. in Israel or elsewhere. This doesn't, um, you know, we're not getting any high grades from the UN or anywhere else, but I can't say that Israel is totally neglectful about this and does not think about the future of the civilian population in Gaza.
I think Israel has shown less restraint than in the past because of this [00:31:00] terrible thing that has happened. There's less restraint on, um, Israeli strikes. It's quite clear. Palestinian civilians have died, but in the eyes of most Israeli decision makers and also the, I'd say the consensus among almost all Israelis is that this is absolutely necessary under the circumstances of what has happened.
So we're trying to push people around again, but these are people who have become refugees. But when you say push people around you mean, you mean It's getting civilians to move from one neighborhood to the other so Israel can strike a particular neighborhood or a particular building and they want to clear out as many civilians as possible.
Exactly. Also, sometimes it's moving from one city to the other, trying to push them out of Khan Yunis right now. The problem is, of course, that people are in panic, uh, that people don't believe anything they hear by now. They've been through two months of hell, the Palestinians, and many of them have moved once.
and do not feel safe to move again. [00:32:00] And Hamas, of course, is not encouraging anybody to move because they want to use those people as human shields against Israeli attacks. So this is getting much, much more complicated. If you look at the Israeli operation in the northern part, this was a success from a military planning point of view.
They forced about 90 95 percent of the civilian population out. And although Hamas tried to Uh, had tried to block it in the beginning, they couldn't because there was such a wave of people who wanted to move in order to save their families lives. Now, it's much more difficult than that. I have to say that the number of Israeli soldiers working in the southern part of the Gaza Strip is much smaller.
It's one division. while there were three working in the northern part. So maybe Israel is more cautious than before. It has to do with American expectations as well. American pressure applied by President Biden and his team. But it's not very different. There's a lot of airstrikes, a lot of power [00:33:00] being used because this is such a dangerous war.
Um, um, for the Israeli soldiers as well. Look at the pictures, look at the videos. These are intensely populated areas, there are ruins everywhere. In a way it looks like Stalingrad, or Berlin in 1945. There's huge destruction everywhere, and soldiers are fighting this. You would have expected, under the circumstances, that the army would destroy everything at sight in order to defend As much soldiers as they can.
What you actually see are infantry soldiers moving through not very populated areas because the actual population is trying to escape, but going through very narrow roads and streets. And this is of course dangerous. This is why some lives have been lost. It's not an easy job to do and it's getting more and more difficult.
When you look at those videos and you talk to military experts, Uh, Israel is going through quite a challenge here. [00:34:00] What kind of risk is Israel taking the IDF taking when it alerts different neighborhoods and communities, the civilians in those communities, that it's coming for a particular building or an area and they need to clear out.
'cause aren't they also warning the Hama fighters and the Hamas commanders that they're targeting that, Hey, we're coming, we're coming to. to the area that you're, you know, underneath in a tunnel. There's some risk there, but I don't think it's the end of the world. I think in the end, when you compare this balance of power between Israel and the other side, it's quite clear that Israel is, that the army is much stronger than Hamas.
And I think that the army can allow itself these kind of steps in order to, um, fight the battle for legitimacy. Because it's quite clear that the world is losing patience with us. Uh, the Western world, uh, specifically. And that we're not getting too much support or too much credit in spite of the horrific massacre two months ago.
And this is why Israel needs to play it, um, [00:35:00] in a sophisticated kind of way. It needs to consider everything else that's happening. You cannot only focus on, you know, uh, the army's, uh, goal is to defeat Hamas, destroy Hamas by any means necessary. And nothing else matters right now. It's more sophisticated than that.
And they're acting in a very difficult terrain. I think they're doing for the time being. Although I'm extremely frustrated by what has happened, uh, during the surprise attack. We do see an improvement in the IDF. Hilti Alevi, the Chief of Staff, who dealt with this huge crisis, it's quite evident that he has recovered from the shock.
That he's, you know, that he's leading the army right now. He's acting like a professional. He's going through hell. I think he would never forget what happened. He'll never be forgiven by what, for what has happened. I keep thinking of David El Azhar, the Chief, Army Chief of Staff during Yom Kippur War, who, you know, had to leave office after the war and then died of, [00:36:00] um, of a stroke about a year after the war.
You can understand what he went through 50 years later looking at our generals right now. And yet, like El Azhar, what you see with Halevi, is, uh, him fighting this, finding this emotional power inside of him to lead the army under these, under these very, very extreme circumstances. It's a very tough job, but I have to say I'm impressed.
I was worried, more worried in the first week or so when the army seemed to be totally in shock. It's doing better right now. As long as the tunnel problem is not resolved, can the IDF defeat Hamas? I'm not so sure that this is mainly about the tunnels right now. It's mainly about Hamas's will to fight.
If, I hope this scenario actually happens, if we manage to kill the Hamas top leadership, if we destroy [00:37:00] enough weapons, kill enough terrorists, and so on, And if what we end with is an organization which is scattered around the place, with no real leadership, with no, uh, field commanders leading their actions, and with a limited, uh, capability of hurting Israelis, especially hurting Israeli civilian population on the other side of the border, then maybe this would be enough for the time being.
It's quite clear that even after we disengage, we'll need to continue. Attacking, having those, uh, limited incursions into the Gaza Strip, the way we did for years and years in, in the West Bank. If you look at the situation in the West Bank during the second intifada, people compare it to defensive shield, which was the main operation that Ariel Sharon ordered in April of 2002.
That was after a year and a half of an intifada, with lots and lots of, uh, suicide bombing attacks and so on. And Sharon hesitated, but in the end he gave the order, and it took the [00:38:00] army about, uh, 20 to 40 days. to regain control of five or six different West Bank Palestinian towns. But then, it took them two or three more years to finally defeat, uh, the Palestinian threat, and then Arafat died, Abbas became, um, the chairman of the, uh, Palestinian Authority, and no peace was achieved, but suddenly life was improving in the West Bank, and the situation, the security situation there.
Was improving as well. Now we're at a much worse situation because of the surprise attack But still I in a way it could be done. It's a greater challenge We won't get to the last rocket the last ak 47 or the last tunnel, but we can limit the damage Hamas could do to us. It's already happening in the end if you look at the situation right now In Israel, there are, every day there are a few rocket attacks, mostly to the south.
Once in two or three days, there's a [00:39:00] barrage of rockets being launched towards the center of Israel, the Tel Aviv area. It's mostly intercepted by Iron Dome. But life, it's not really normal. If you visit Israel now, you see the anxiety on people's faces. But this is about what happened, and about this worry regarding the soldiers that I mentioned in the beginning of our talk today.
It's not so much about the sense of a personal danger to oneself. That was the case two months ago. Tel Aviv is not worried about Hamas rockets anymore. It's worried about what's going on with the soldiers in Gaza and perhaps about the possibility of war breaking out in Lebanon. But Hamas cannot hurt Tel Aviv the way it could have two months ago.
This is an important change. We're learning more and more about the conditions of the hostages based on information that's being briefed out or debriefed out, uh, since some of the hostages returned. We're hearing [00:40:00] that some of the hostages were not actually held in tunnels but were held in civilian, basically apartment buildings with, with seeming, seeming Palestinian civilian families being held by families.
What's that about? That's about Hamas being a movement, a terrorist movement, supported by, if not the majority, a large part of the Gaza population. People hate Israelis. People were taught to see Jews as somebody who deserves everything that happens to them. This is why the actual massacre had so much support.
Among Palestinians in the first few days after what had happened before they realized the price they were about to pay I'm sure that if there were independent public opinion polls in Gaza right now, the reaction would have been very very different but you know, there are tens of thousands of people in supporting roles for the terrorist organizations.
And again, since they don't see us as human beings, people are [00:41:00] gladly taking part in this. We're gradually beginning to understand the terrible ordeals those hostages have been through. There was a sense for a week, last week in Israel, it was a sort of a rollercoaster kind of event. Every day we were waiting for those hostages to be released.
There was always this tension whether they're actually coming back. It was extremely emotional to see people being reunited with their families and so on. But every family of these hostages is a broken one. People, you had the mother and the kids coming back while the grandmother or the grandfather or the husband were either slaughtered on October 7th or stayed in under terrible conditions kept by Hamas as, um, you know, because Hamas wants assets for the, for the next stage.
This is the tragedy and people went through a Uh, terrible conditions there. And on top of this, there's a fear [00:42:00] that the remaining 138 Israelis who are there, some of them are dead, it's quite apparent by now, and others are dying. What we hear from the hostages families and from those coming back, Is that living conditions there are getting more and more difficult and that many of them are suffering a very bad treatment, hardly any food to eat, uh, fear, of course, and this has been going on for months.
And the fear among the hostages families and friends is that we're fighting for time and that we don't have time. That actually the fact that there's a refusal to renegotiate, mostly from Hamas, but in their view also from the Israeli government, um, means that those lives will be lost. And again, Israel treats those issues differently.
It's not an American president or a Russian president who decides, uh, we're not dealing with terrorists, we're not dealing with somebody trying to blackmail us, and tough enough, tough as it [00:43:00] is, people would die. This is not the case in Israel. This is something else. Being such a small society and everything being so emotional.
Um, this is not something that the Israeli public would, uh, um, easily succumb to. So there will be huge, um, tensions regarding this. On the one hand, the hostages, to some extent, um, supported by a specific political camp, the center left. There will be demands for more and more negotiations, and for a quick deal to be reached, even if it means huge Israeli concessions.
For instance, uh, releasing 6, 000 terrorists or And on the other hand, Netanyahu is facing a danger that not only the extreme right, but a lot of the reservist soldiers, for instance, would be extremely angry at him if he pulls out of Gaza without actually reaching, um, fulfilling the goals that he announced, defeating Hamas, destroying the Hamas organization, killing all the leaders, uh, forcing the release [00:44:00] of the hostages and so on.
I think there will be huge frustration, and if we look back at Israeli history in two cases, both in 1973 and in 1982 or 83, the soldiers coming back from the Yom Kippur War and the First Lebanon War, the reservists, were, um, you know, the hotbed for a huge political movement that gradually made political change.
In both cases, Golda Meir did not lose office. In 73 or the the marach the labor party because rabin became a prime minister, but it led to begins rise in 77 And the same was true for Likud in 82. Begin resigned, as you remember. Sharon was pushed out because of the Kahan committee's conclusions. And it took two more years.
But Likud had to give in to a national unity government with labor. after the next elections. And in both cases, the watershed moment was the war and the shock it created. I think that we can see a [00:45:00] repeat of that in the future months. Last question before you go, and I know you're, you're tight on time.
You met, you just, I just want to pick back up on the, you say that most Gazans support Hamas and that that's why so many of them are participating and holding hostages in their civilian homes. But we're also seeing reports of Gazans increasingly getting frustrated with Hamas, lack of food, lack of water, lack of fuel.
Can you imagine a world in which the civilian population in Gaza turns against Hamas and there's some kind of revolt? I think it's in the cards, perhaps not now, but if the humanitarian crisis continues and if chaos engulfs Gaza for the next weeks, then people would have nothing to lose. The fear from Hamas is real.
We've seen that they've ruled Gaza with an iron fist for the last 16 years. But then again, people need to care for their families. There's no money coming in, uh, no work permits, not only in Israel, not only, uh, for the last two months. It's [00:46:00] not going to happen for decades, I think. So, we're losing hope. And in the end, what you need to do is provide for your family.
If you don't have, uh, bread or pita. to eat. If you don't have drinking water, if you don't have any, a shelter from the weather, which would grow worse in, in January, we assume, then this is a big deal. And we've already seen, as you said, scenes of chaos and even sometimes that one minute or two minute interview on Al Jazeera when somebody's speaking live and the reporter cannot censor them and they actually blame Hamas.
A woman, an elderly woman, was asked yesterday What happens? And said, well, all the food is downstairs, it's in the tunnels, because this is going to Hamas's mouths and not ours. Is this enough to, to change everything? Is this the breaking point of the Palestinians in Gaza? I don't know. But I think that we're gradually getting there.
If, um, things continue [00:47:00] to escalate, and the war continues, and in spite of the American humanitarian efforts, people will be looking for food and shelter, Then at one point or another, Hamas could not rule anymore. And Hamas has already given up on a lot. There's no civilian administration in the northern part anymore.
And there's hardly a working civilian office or municipalities in the south as well. So this is the reality right now. It's becoming more and more difficult for Sinuol. It's true that he doesn't care about his population. This was proved on October 7th. But then again, at one point or another, he has to care because this could be the source of his demise as well.
Just those images from Al Jazeera are quite amusing where they're, to your point, they're going live. So there's an Al Jazeera correspondent. So they don't get the benefit of a package piece that they can edit. They're going live. They ask a Gazan a question. The Gazan interviewee starts criticizing Hamas and you can just see the delayed reaction with the reporter interviewing.
That's the rare moment [00:48:00] where you can actually see the truth with all this charade. Yeah. Uh, Amos, thank you. Uh, I appreciate it. Again, I know you're, you're super busy and, um, I will look forward to checking in with you soon. Thank you for inviting me.
That's our show for today. To keep up with Amos Harel's work, you can do so by going to haaretz. com and his books that we are Fans of 34 Days, about the Lebanon War, which we've referenced in the past, we will also post in the show notes. Call Me Back is produced by Ilan Benatar. Until next time, I'm your host, Dan Senor.