Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - BREAKING: Israeli Tanks ROLL Gaza As US Strikes Iranian Bases

Episode Date: October 28, 2023

Krystal and Saagar discuss the latest out of the Middle East as Israeli tanks roll into Gaza amid a massive bombing campaign and the US strikes Iranian bases.To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show uncut and 1 hour early visit: https://breakingpoints.supercast.com/Merch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart podcast. All right, guys, a lot going on this morning that we wanted to update you on at least as best as we can tell. So let me move through a few of these elements. And again, fog of war. We're just getting reports out of Gaza this morning, so we don't have the full details of what exactly has just unfolded there. But it appears from reports from journalists both on the ground in Gaza, near Gaza, and residents on the ground, that Israel has significantly escalated their strikes and their incursion into that area, both in terms of an on-the-ground presence and in terms of a bombing campaign.

Let's go ahead and start with this first element. The first sign that we got that a lot was going down is they cut the telecoms and internet infrastructure. Put this up on the screen. This reads, this phone call is from a journalist stationed at a Gaza hospital. He's able to make a call because of data roaming on Turkish SIM card translation. We are in Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital. We have no idea what's happening. There is no connection, no Wi-Fi, no reporters. We are cut off from everything. People cannot call ambulances or civil defense. We are being bombed in an unprecedented manner. The sky around us just lights up with explosions. No one knows what's going on. You can't reach anyone, even if they're

only 500 meters away. Ambulances and medics are begging reporters to let them know which streets are getting bombarded to go rescue the victims. But the reporters themselves do not know where anything is happening because of the connection loss. We are trying to report the victims, but the reporters themselves do not know where anything is happening because of the connection loss. We are trying to report the news, but we have no idea what is happening. So initial reports, telecoms cut off, internet cut off. Very difficult for reporters to get any sort of intel into what is going on in the ground on Gaza. But you did have people who were in and around who were able to get some communications out and who reported a bombing campaign unlike anything that they had seen thus far. And we also

got official news from the Israelis themselves that this was their largest scale raid. But not yet. They're saying that full ground invasion that we've been hearing about for so long. We'll talk more about that in a moment. But a significant raid into Gaza itself. We are just starting to get reports out this morning of what the fallout from this is. We have no idea in terms of casualty numbers yet. I haven't seen a single number floating around as of yet. Go ahead and put this up on the screen. You can see here what is reported to be some of the aftermath of this bombing campaign overnight. And that's basically what we know. Let me put this last part up. Israeli mechanized forces remain inside Gaza Saturday morning at this hour after launching the

largest assault of the war last night. This is according to an IDF spokesperson. They are also claiming, Sagar, that they were able to take out a few Hamas militants. Yeah, this is a very confused situation, and it's very difficult. You and I were talking a little bit before this, but I want to lay this out for everyone. The IDF, with the mechanized forces that remain inside of Gaza at the moment that you and I are speaking, are all inside of tanks, and they are claiming that they have taken zero casualties, which, well, there's only one real way to take zero casualties, and that's if you don't have infantry and ground forces that are surrounding those tanks, that are occupying positions, that are taking out militants and engaging in

hand-to-hand combat or in small arms fire. So that means that they heavily bombarded these three separate areas of northern Gaza, based on what we've been able to tell during the communications blackout. Massive airstrikes combined with tanks. We also saw a lot of artillery that was coming from Israel going into Gaza. So it does look like this is a leveling campaign of sorts. There's a couple of different ways to read it, which is that they're going in and they're blowing up infrastructure so that infantry and ground forces could come in, occupy that position, root out any militants, take out the tunnels,

and then remove any of the obstacles in terms of infrastructure. That's one way. The other way is that this is a massive show of force just to say, hey, here's what we can do, and we're going to take zero casualties. In terms of the military effectiveness, I mean, we simply have no idea. Hamas has not confirmed any number of casualties. They were bizarrely claiming that they had destroyed a number of Israeli tanks, like 30 or something like that. That's just obviously not true. We don't know, though, if they took zero or not. It was really his claim that they are. I think regardless, what we could say is that this is some sort of shaping operation of some kind. It could be a massive show of force, just like this is what could come to you unless you release these hostages.

It could be could read it that way. We could read it as one way that they're going in. They're doing this. And then they can just come out and be like, look, world, we did it. You know, we leveled for whatever, some percentage of the city. We took out all the infrastructure of specifically a lot of these were near the border areas where the strongholds were. You know, we can wrap it up, we can declare victory. And then the other way is that this is just simply a way to make sure that you can make it as safe as possible for ground forces to come in and then use these as staging operations for a full scale invasion into Gaza. But regardless, this is obviously a significant operation. And with the telecoms, this is making it incredibly difficult for all of us to have any idea of what

the hell is going on. We just saw the news break this morning, Crystal, that Starlink, Elon Musk says he will enable Starlink access for internationally recognized humanitarian aid organizations inside of Gaza. That is a great, great step forward, because up until this point, Israel had not allowed Starlink access over any of their territory. So this is at least one way where we might be starting to get some information dribble out about what's happening. Yeah, we'll see the extent of that. I mean, obviously, you need telecoms for the ordinary residents. You need telecoms for the hospitals that are still operating there.

You need comms for the journalists who are on the ground and the media organizations that remain there as well. So we'll see how widespread the access here is based on his definition of internationally recognized aid organizations. But, you know, just to keep the focus for a second on the human beings who are being impacted here, you've already in Gaza had people who've been subjected to bombings over, you know, weeks at this point. And then you have the additional terror of complete blackout. And what does that mean? That means that if you have someone who's injured or wounded, you can't call an ambulance.

Medics can't figure out where to go and how to help. You have total inability, if you've, you know, your friends and family members to stay in touch with them and know if or whether they are alive and well. So you couple that with what, you know, journalists both inside of Gaza and nearby to Gaza described as another level of bombing campaign alongside of the ground incursion. And you can just imagine the absolute terror. As I said, we haven't gotten any numbers yet from anyone about potential additional casualties. But you can expect that they are likely significant, given what we're already seeing of the level of devastation on the ground.

We also have some news here from the U.S., which is increasingly sounding these notes of like, oh, we're concerned about what's going on. Of course, they never threaten to withhold the aid or do anything about, you know, trying to change the trajectory of what's going on. But their notes of caution are growing larger and louder, Sager. You had Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin speaking with the Israeli Minister of Defense, underscoring the importance of protecting civilians during the IDF operations in Gaza, focusing on the urgency of humanitarian aid delivery for civilians in Gaza. You know, I think there's been a lot of reporting coming out about how the U.S. has been urging the Israelis to not do the full ground invasion, that they were sort of horrified

that there was no real plan in place, that they do not think that it will accomplish the objective of destroying Hamas, that it could very well easily spark that larger regional war. And so, you know, these are the types of notes that they're sounding at this point. But again, I mean, it's all kind of meaningless when you're not actually willing to use the leverage you have to shape the outcome and shape the operation itself. Yeah, it's fascinating to watch them basically behind the scenes being like, please, please, please, please, please don't do it. Just do surgical strikes.

Just go in, basically try and recreate U.S. Joint Special Operations Command, which goes in helicopter late at night, lands on the roof, kills all the militants inside, gets out. Minimum civilian casualties. You actually take out the leadership of the organization. Israel is well equipped to do that. The U.S. obviously is incredibly well, could easily train them or at least help them to do so. That does not appear what they want to do. But who knows? I mean, we don't know.

There's a lot of things inside the Israeli war cabinet. Nobody has agreed on anything. I think what we can definitely see is that inside of the Biden administration, those initial calls on October 8th of Israel can do whatever it wants. That's gone. That is not the reality anymore. And I believe it is because of the extensive experience of the United States military has and the U.S. government also in these urban warfare combat situations. I mean, I actually, Crystal, went and started reading the Modern War Institute from West Point. Excellent. Has done multiple urban warfare case studies on the U.S. experience on ISIS in Mosul,

the U.S. experience in multiple other urban warfare situations. They also wrote something up about Hamas and in Gaza. Everything that they're talking about there is that in Mosul, for example, Iraqi security forces with U.S. air cover. So the most sophisticated air force known to man took one to one casualties for that. Every militant that was killed, an Iraqi soldier was killed. And then on top of that, more civilians were killed than all of the ISIS fighters combined. So they took 30,000. I mean, that and that's a one to one ratio. And I've laid this out before. This is with the

civilian population that did not support ISIS. This is a completely different scenario. And we've got 50,000 fighters instead of 8,000 to 10,000 ISIS fighters. The sheer scale of the military operation and even the questions about the political capability of the Israelis. I mean, are you ready, Israel? Are you ready to take 50,000 casualties in order to accomplish this goal? The polling already coming outside of Israel, I'm sure we'll have a lot of this in our Monday show, is that a huge portion of the Republic does not support a ground invasion. I think because they can see reality. And these are their sons. These are their brothers. These are their sisters, their mothers. I mean, the entire half the country or whatever has been called up for service. You have some 500000 people. This is a no joke military operation if they actually want to go through with it. So all I think reality is all starting to hit. And we haven't even mentioned the broader war. So let's put this up there on the screen. As we had mentioned, multiple U.S. targets were hit and have been hit since October 7th. Some 21 U.S. soldiers have suffered traumatic brain injuries.

On top of that, the United States has now carried out a military operation and airstrikes against these Iranian militias followed over 15 drone and rocket attacks by militias on U.S. forces in Syria and Iraq, resulting in the death of an American contractor as well as the injury of at least 30 service members. This letter states the United States stands ready to further take action as necessary and appropriate to address further threats or attacks. Also, we have a new announcement from the Iranian foreign minister this morning saying that increased incursions mean increased military activity or can in the future. We don't know yet what that will materialize or look like. There's a lot of concern, especially with Iranian-backed militias, obviously Hezbollah, but also the Houthis in Yemen,

their ability to mount multiple force attacks against U.S. forces in Iraq and in Syria. There are already reports coming out, Crystal, from the defense press that multiple U.S. positions have had to be abandoned forward operating bases because they're so vulnerable. You know, we are sitting ducks, our service members in a lot of a lot of places very, very near Iran. Just two, three weeks ago, they were you know, they had nothing going on. And now they're finding themselves like absolutely so vulnerable to attack. So there's this is a very, very, very difficult situation in terms of what the military operation is going to look like. There's just no question. I mean, if the civilian casualty ratio is one to one, then you can just do the math for every Hamas fighter that they claim to kill.

That means at least one civilian was likely killed, but probably more considering the scale of this campaign. And then, you know, the Israelis themselves have not yet had to suffer any casualties, but they will if they want to go in and accomplish what they claim that they do. To your point about the civilian death toll um before this latest intensification and bombardment where you know we have no comm so we really don't know what's going on before that you had um purported over 6 000 people killed in gaza and according to uh the idf and what had come out publicly, 13 Hamas militants confirmed dead. So that gives you a sense of the disproportionate nature, the overwhelming number of civilian deaths.

And, you know, not only is this, as we've said many times, an incredibly crowded area and incredibly dense, you know, even the area in the south that they told people to flee to is also suffering under constant bombardment. And nearly half the population are children. So it is a horrific toll that's being taken here. And, you know, the Israelis are not they're not foolish. They have an incredibly sophisticated military and intelligence apparatus, even, you know, in spite of the failures that they, you know, that we witnessed on October 7th. But I think we should stop pretending like the real goal is to take out Hamas because nothing in their

actions thus far suggests that that's consistent with the goal. I think even if they took the actions that, you know, the counterintel specialists and Jocko Willink and all these people are saying they should take, I think it's an impossible goal. They clearly have no plan for, you know, if they were able to somehow miraculously actually completely remove Hamas leadership, what comes next? It seems to me like this is just all about retribution. This is what the Israeli public wants out of the trauma that, you know,

and the horror that they suffered on October 7th. You see this reflected in the statements of, you know, supposedly moderate politicians like Isaac Herzog, the president of Israel, who's supposed to be like the moderate face of Israel, who's out saying there are no innocent civilians. You have other members of the Knesset saying the children of Gaza brought this on themselves. I mean, this is the type of commonplace rhetoric that you're hearing with very little backlash or opprobrium to. I mean, much more of the backlash comes to anyone who says, hey, you know, let's not just decimate the Gaza population. So that gives you the sense of where the energy is on the ground among the Israeli public. I think part of why there's been a

reluctance at this point and a change in opinion from the Israeli public on whether or not to do the full ground invasion is fear over IDF casualties and also fear about what happens with the hostages. I mean, that still remains a major issue. And there's still a lot of questions over whether some of the hostages have already been killed by the strikes that have occurred. We really, you know, we have no, there's been some reporting about very little knowledge of what is happening there on the ground. So, so in any case, you know, I think this operation is very clear. It's just about, it's about retaliation and this supposed military goal of taking out Hamas. I don't think they really believe that that is what they're after.

I think they're just trying to, I think Netanyahu is trying to preserve, trying to save his own butt in terms of his political future. That's part of why he's wanted to drag this out because he says, hey, we'll do an inquiry. We'll ask the hard questions, but after the war is over. So he has a, you know, he has all the incentive in the world to drag this out and keep this going as long as possible. And then you also have the U.S., which is responding to a growing protest movement here and around the world and understanding that if the images that are coming out of Gaza already continue to emerge and the brutality and scale of the brutality increases even further, that you could very easily end up with this broader regional war and backlash.

To the point of the protest movement escalating here in the U.S., you actually had a group of Jewish protesters, we can put this up on the screen, calling for a ceasefire, who kind of took over Grand Central Station in New York. They were there, you know, sort of flooded in there. Police were trying to close the exits, but people kept coming in. Eventually, they said, we don't have an official tally from NYPD, but the organizers of the protest said some hundreds of protesters were arrested there. You also have a large protest planned for D.C. in, I think that's next weekend that that is planned for. So you can see the backlash where the American public initially, of course, overwhelmingly shocked, overwhelmingly sympathizing with the Israelis after the Hamas terror attack.

But very quickly, as people realize, hey, we could get dragged into this thing and seeing the images coming out of Gaza and being horrified about what's being done there, you know, with our backing and with our support, public opinion here is shifting very rapidly as well. I think it easily could shift quickly. It doesn't take a genius. And that's also if that's the Israelis aim, then they better wrap it up soon, because the more that you keep going and if you're going to keep this going for a long time, you're just diminishing support in the West is going to increase the EU already changing its position. And then on top of all of that, you have the broader war fears and you have a growing protest

movement here in the U.S. which cannot be ignored. I mean, these are some of the largest anti-war protests, probably what, since the Iraq war? Definitely. In the United States. That is not, you cannot ignore that. You know, hundreds of thousands march against the Iraq war. If this continues, especially if U.S. involvement gets on the question, I can absolutely see a scenario where it could increase. So we're doing our best here just to give everybody the updates. If there is a necessary one for tomorrow, we will do so. But otherwise, we've got a Monday show. Shout out to the premium subs who enable us to be able to do all of this.

But anything else, Crystal? I think that wraps it up as far as we can tell. And of course, we'll continue to follow whatever we can that's unfolding on the ground there. All right. We'll see you guys later. This is an iHeart Podcast.