Call Me Back - with Dan Senor - Ending the Gaza War - with Nadav Eyal
Episode Date: June 30, 2025Watch Call me Back on YouTube: youtube.com/@CallMeBackPodcastCheck out Ark Media’s other podcasts: For Heaven's Sake: lnk.to/rfGlrA‘What’s Your Number?’: lnk.to/rbGlvMFor sponsorship inquirie...s, please contact: callmeback@arkmedia.orgTo contact us and sign up for updates visit: www.arkmedia.org/Ark Media on Instagram: instagram.com/arkmediaorgDan on X: x.com/dansenorDan on Instagram: instagram.com/dansenorTo order Dan Senor & Saul Singer’s book, The Genius of Israel: https://tinyurl.com/bdeyjsdnToday’s Episode:Now that the “12 Day War” between Israel and Iran has ended (for now), we are turning our attention back toward the war in Gaza, where 50 Israeli hostages remain. President Donald Trump has been advocating for an end to the war, saying that he believes a hostage-ceasefire deal might come within a week. This comes amid increasing doubts about IDF achievements in Gaza going forward, especially with IDF casualties on a near daily basis. This past Wednesday, seven Israeli soldiers were tragically killed when an IED hit the armored vehicle they were in. Joining us to discuss the ongoing IDF campaign in Gaza and the possibility for a new ceasefire deal — and the events taking place in the West Bank — is Call me Back regular and political analyst at Yedioth Achronot, Nadav Eyal.–CREDITS:ILAN BENATAR - Producer & EditorMARTIN HUERGO - Sound EditorMARIANGELES BURGOS - Additional EditingMAYA RACKOFF - Operations DirectorGABE SILVERSTEIN - ResearchYUVAL SEMO - Music Composer
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You are listening to an art media podcast.
Israelis are still resolute that Hamas can't control the Gaza Strip, but they want the
hostages back and they're starting to understand it's going to be a long, historic viewpoint
into the future to make that goal that Hamas isn't a power in the Gaza Strip.
This has crossed the Rubicon in the Israeli psyche.
This war is no longer something that is at the best interest.
If you can end it, get the hostages back and make sure that there is,
at least on the record, a different government in the Gaza Strip.
It's 7.30 a.m. on Sunday, June 29th in New York City.
It is 2.30 p.m. on Sunday, June 29th in Israel as Israelis begin a new week counting 631 days since
the war began and while 50 hostages still remain in the underground tunnels
of Gaza. After a stunning 12-day military campaign in Iran potentially
lifting the greatest existential threat that has been looming over Israel for decades. The focus in Israel is shifting back to Gaza.
Earlier this week, seven Israeli soldiers were killed when an armored
vehicle was hit by an explosive device.
A few days later, the daily national newspaper Haaretz published a
troubling article citing soldiers describing being ordered to deliberately shoot at unarmed Gazans waiting for humanitarian aid.
The IDF acknowledged that it was probing the allegations that troops are using deadly fire on Gazans,
but denied that they were being ordered by their commanders to do so.
The Prime Minister and the Defense Minister issued a statement refuting this report entirely calling it a blood libel. The war in Gaza is just over three months
away from approaching its two-year anniversary as IDF soldiers continue to be killed on a
weekly basis and we still have no sense for what the future holds for the Israeli hostages
still in Gaza. So Israelis are increasingly asking, perhaps in stark contrast to the sentiment towards
the achievements in the Iran war, where are things headed in the war in Gaza?
Another reason this question is top of mind is that President Trump seems to be pushing
hard for a ceasefire in Gaza.
On Saturday he told reporters in the Oval Office that he believes a ceasefire will be
reached within the next week.
At the same press conference, he referenced the quote terrible situation that's going
on in Gaza and spoke about the recent decision by the US to give $30 million to the Gaza
Humanitarian Foundation.
Joining us to unpack these critical and challenging questions is call me back regular Nadav Ayal who's also a political analyst at
Yedirot Achronot. Nadav, thanks for being here. Thanks for having me Dan.
Nadav, I want to get into what's been going on in Gaza and where things are
heading. But before we do I just want to spend a moment on the West Bank. There
was a report about an event in the West Bank, and it's been dominating
the news in Israel over the last 36 hours, in which, according to the report, several
dozen Israeli settlers in the West Bank attacked IDF reserve soldiers. So I'm trying to understand
from the U.S. what actually is going on here. It's a little confusing. Can you just tell
us a little bit about it before we move on to the other questions?
This story dominated the news during the weekend in Israel.
It actually began 24 hours before that
in an area called Kafar Malik near Ramallah.
It's the center of the West Bank of Jubea and Samaria.
Dozens of settlers arrived.
It's actually, I'm saying settlers, but I should
say that the settlement movement is saying that these people don't usually reside in Judea and
Samaria. So they're coming from within the green line in sovereign Israel. But dozens of far-right
activists arrived to this Palestinian village. They were burning buildings and cars.
They were confronting the residents there.
At least 10 Palestinians got hurt because of stones thrown by the Israelis.
A military force came there, an IDF force came there, and the IDF force had seen shots fired at them from within the Palestinian village as part of this entire mess.
And the force opened fire and three Palestinians were killed in a confrontation that began actually with these far-right activists that were storming the village.
And what usually IDF sources, security sources, are simply describing
as a pogrom.
This was an expression used at the time by the head of the Shin Bet and by others.
Then 24 hours later, in the same area, IDF forces identified dozens of far-right settlers
driving in vehicles in an area that's described as a closed military zone.
And the reason it's a closed military zone is because there was an illegal outpost that
was built there by the settlers.
This illegal outpost was built on private Palestinian land.
The IDF tried to stop these Israeli Jewish activists through stones towards the IDF force.
They assaulted both physically the soldiers and the regiment commander,
who said they tried to choke him, they destroyed some vehicles,
and they tried, allegedly, to actually hit some soldiers with their cars.
This was a huge story.
The chief of staff of the IDF, Ealzheimer, came there, you know, in less than six hours to show his support for that regiment commander,
who said he was physically assaulted by the far-right activists, settlers, whoever was exactly there.
There were a few people arrested. The prime minister issued a condemnation to what happened.
Condemning these activists.
Condemning the far right activists or settlers.
The chief of staff said, and I quote, I'm trying to translate as I go along, there's
a wonderful settlement movement here that's law-abiding, but these activities by groups
of extremists, first of all, hurt the local Israeli population but also
hurts the security in this sector and it diverts the security forces from their
main mission. This violence and this extremist actions if they will not be
treated in a systematic way can end with a catastrophe.
This is Ayel Zemir, the chief of staff of the IDF, speaking a few hours later while
being there and showing his support for that regiment commander who's really tasked with
supplying security in the region, mainly for the Israeli settlers living there, and was
attacked by those far-right activists. Now, condemnations from the Prime Minister to these actions against the IDF soldiers,
from the Defense Minister, from the Chief of Staff, naturally, but a condemnation from
Betalel Smotrich to whom? To the IDF. Smotrich was accusing the IDF that they shot live ammo or suggesting the idea that they
shot live ammo against the Israelis.
There was a separate incident in that sector in which the IDF got stones thrown at their
vehicles.
They shot in the air as a response, and one of these who's a teenager actually got shot
in the same region they're saying we don't know that it's us we didn't know
who's throwing stones at us now I'm telling you this story and I guess that
many of the people now listening are saying what's this mess what's this all
about and the answer is welcome to some parts of the West Bank. This is happening
all the time. First of all, these kind of raids against Palestinian villages that two
or three years ago would be unheard of are now happening almost every two weeks, every
week. We're hearing about something like that. And the Israeli Shin Bet, the security service that's responsible among other things for
far-right activists, one of the reasons that it is in a direct confrontation with this
coalition.
But also the IDF are extremely worried and they're blaming, in off-the-record conversations,
the government, they're blaming the police that's controlled by Ben-Gur in not doing what they're supposed to do.
They're saying that they're getting some sort of tacit support from the establishment.
One example to that is that there's a notion in Israeli law called administrative arrest.
It's not a very democratic notion, but basically it says that if someone
is a security threat, the government
can arrest them without indicting them for a specific period of time, if there are imminent
security risks.
And Palestinians are arrested through administrative arrests.
Now in Israel, human rights activists, by the way, from left and right, don't like this
tool at all, and everybody can understand why.
It's very much an emergency tool that you use. Now the Shin Bet, Israeli security service, was up in arms against this. Their
professional opinion was that you need to use it because the far-right activists across
the West Bank or operating in the West Bank are very sophisticated. It takes a real toll
on the Shin Bet to actually find enough evidence to indict, and sometimes
they just want to get that person out of the West Bank.
And the defense minister said, you know, I'm vetoing it.
This is not going to happen anymore.
This is one example to sources in the defense apparatus saying this is the way in which
Katz is actually giving them some sort of a tacit support.
Of course, Katz's advisors and people are completely saying
that there is absolutely no connection
and that the Shin Bet only asked one administrative arrest
since basically he came into office and he refused that,
but that's it.
So they're saying it's a non-story.
But this is just an example, Dan.
What's happening in the West Bank,
very much related to how the war in Gaza is,
we're focused on Iran, we're focused on other issues, became in many areas, I don't want to say a no man's land,
but it became a place in which you have armed groups, like far-right groups, roaming there with their cars.
They're trying to have a new outpost. The IDF is trying to stop them.
The IDF is not doing a good job at that because the IDF is not a police and it's not the Shin
Bet.
It's not the security service.
So they can arrest them immediately.
And by the way, they're Israeli citizens.
They're not supposed to be arrested by the IDF.
They're supposed to be arrested by the Israeli police in these areas in the West Bank.
So they pick up the phone.
They call the local
police station and that local police station, say in the IDF, doesn't really want to cooperate
with the IDF because the police is very much now, you know, I don't want to say a Ben-Gvir
kingdom because it isn't, right? We see there, for instance, the investigations against the prime minister, but there are areas in the police in which some officials won't want to get infused with the
conflict of arresting Israeli settlers. So this mess is just one of the things that Israel has been
sort of sidelining during the war in Gaza and the war with Iran, but really blew up during this
weekend.
And we're not going to hear anything about it until, and this is Ayyadzamir saying, not
me saying, a catastrophe happens.
And what does he mean by a catastrophe?
I think he means the possibility that IDF soldiers, for instance, will shoot, you know,
not knowing who they're shooting at because they're being attacked.
Or you might have a terror attack against Palestinians,
and we have seen terror attacks against Palestinians,
that would be devastating, and that's something that the IDF is extremely worried about.
Okay, so speaking of another area where the IDF has been focused, as you said,
I want to talk about Gaza, while this, you know, potential powder keg here in the West Bank continues to bear
monitoring clearly and so there's a lot happening. It seems like all of a sudden
there's a lot happening in Gaza or maybe there was a lot happening
that just weren't paying attention because we're all focused on Iran.
So I want to just set the table, Madav, by going back to, you know,
three to four months ago since the last ceasefire ended. If you could describe for us what the IDF has actually
accomplished in Gaza over the last three or four months.
What's been happening there?
So the IDF is in the process of an operation
called the Chariots of Gideon, which
is an operation that was supposed to push Hamas
into a deal, basically.
Or occupy the Gaza Strip.
It has several phases. right now the IDF
has occupied basically about 75%. There was an argument made by this government
that previously the IDF led by the previous officers, by the previous chief
of staff didn't hold to the territory that it took in the Gaza Strip, therefore we needed to
occupy it again and again.
That argument as of itself, I have to say, is just militarily speaking, is downright
false.
But here's the point.
They changed their tactics.
They wanted to take a hold of land, hold to that land, clear that land as far as they
are concerned, and they thought this would push Hamas into a deal.
And if not, there would be a second and third phase in which actually the IDF
occupies the center of the city of Gaza.
Just to be clear, there are a million people living there then.
A million people in Gaza City.
And there are the camps in the central parts of Gaza, places like Dira al-Balaf and others.
And in these camps and in the city of Gaza, you see really the resistance of Hamas there.
Now Israel could not operate in some areas in Gaza freely because it feared and still
fears jeopardizing the lives of the hostages.
So the first parts were just pushing through places like Hanyunas, Rafah, other sections
and allowing the local population in Gaza to move south.
So Israel didn't cut Gaza, and we spoke about this many times on this podcast, it didn't
cut Gaza east-west.
It didn't create a serene corridor again that prevents Palestinians moving from the north to the south.
It was trying to push the Palestinian population from north to the south because it wanted to operate, for instance, in Gaza City.
Even in the idea of today, they would admit it didn't work.
How do we know that?
We're a few months later and Hamas wasn't pushed to a deal as a result of this operation.
Another thing that Israel did was to support the food distribution centers by the Gaza
humanitarian effort, the GHF, which is a big deal.
We spoke about this on the podcast too.
These are the two elements that were driving the Israeli policy in Gaza.
One was military pressure against Hamas, saying we're willing to occupy the entire Gaza Strip
if needed, trying to push them to another deal. And the second one was taking away Hamas'
leverage on the local population through supporting the food distribution center. Now, was it
successful? If you speak with Shin Bet officials, with army officials,
and I've done that even in the last 24 hours,
they will tell you, look, the IDF is killing sometimes
between 15 to 40 Hamas operatives a day
with targeted strikes.
I don't mean they don't maneuver in the vicinity
of a neighborhood, identify someone, a figure,
with a gun or a rifle, then hit them.
No, I mean they have intelligence coming from the Israeli intelligence branch in the army
or from the Shin Bet of a specific location, a specific person, they know his ID, it goes
through a process, then they decide to strike.
So they're saying basically we're killing a lot of terrorists as far as we are concerned
and we are pushing and we have reached a point in which we control almost 75% of the territory.
On the other hand, what happens, and Dan you know this well, this idea of taking a hold
of a territory and staying there
is exactly the idea that leads to the birth of guerrilla warfare.
Because you're not on the move, right?
So that you're moving quickly in, quickly out, you take out the terrorists, no, you're
staying there with your armored vehicles, you're staying there with your camps, and
the enemy learns what you're doing.
And therefore now the main weapon used by Hamas is improvised explosive weapons.
This is the kind of explosives that was used in the disaster in which seven Israeli soldiers,
one officer were killed. So that Hamas terrorist, you can see that video, unfortunately, that terrible video
in which he basically runs from the rubble and he's holding this improvised explosive
weapon in his hand.
And he throws it into the armored vehicle and he just runs away and it blows up.
And that armored vehicle burned for hours.
They needed to tow it to Israel's territory just to put it down and all the soldiers died
inside.
It was a terrible fire trap and this is just one story.
And this tool is used all across Gaza by Hamas and they're not
having any sort of shooting matches with the IDF anymore. There's no skirmishes
in which there's a bunch of Hamas fighters going from a tunnel
shooting against an IDF force. This is not how it goes down these days. It's all about these IEDs,
improvised explosive weapons, which then again you remember from Iraq was, you
know, the number one issue at a certain point. So now it's the number one issue
for the IDF. Our use of IEDs that, I mean, I get that it's in high usage. Is it a
new tool entirely? Like is this something we hadn't seen
in earlier parts of the war, being used by Hamas?
It's not a new tool,
but it's the tool of choice right now for Hamas.
And it's working very well
because you have a lot of forces,
unfortunately, in the Gaza Strip.
So they have routes, and these routes will have,
for instance, trucks with food and ammunition going into the Gaza Strip.
And you have these forces that are staying in a routine in specific areas, and you need
to – we say in Hebrew, I'm translating – open the routes or make sure that the
routes are secured from IEDs.
And Hamas is excelling at this.
And by the way, what explosives are they using?
And the answer is Israel has dropped so many bombs
on the Gaza Strip that there is enough explosives
that didn't detonate and they're actually using
IDF explosive to make these IEDs.
And that explosive is extremely efficient.
So this is a big challenge.
And if you'd ask the IDF, they made great strides
with their operation, and it's working.
But the strategic aim has not been reached.
And right now, the IDF is very close to coming
to the government, and it's going to happen, I guess,
in the next week or so then, and saying, look, the goals that you have set to us
have been achieved according to the phases.
You wanted to take control.
You wanted to pressure.
You wanted us to secure the food distribution places.
We did all that.
Now what do you want us to do?
And here's what the IDF really wants.
They want the war to be over.
Now, by saying over, I don't mean they want Hamas to control the Gaza Strip.
They think that there is very little to be achieved right now
unless Israel takes full military control of the Gaza Strip,
something that, as far as I know, the IDF is not recommending.
Or we reach an agreement in which Hamas doesn't control
the Gaza Strip and the hostages return back home.
And they are frustrated, some people with the chief of staff, by the lack of progress
there.
And everybody knows, and you see this with the Israeli public, look at the difference between what has happened with Iran, what has happened with Hezbollah, and what has
happened in the Gaza Strip.
This doesn't look like a success because it isn't a success.
It's not only eating away with the Israeli society with this not so slow stream of casualties
of people who are being killed, but also with international
legitimacy. And the parents of the soldiers who were killed in that armored vehicle last week,
they gave just heartbreaking speeches and interviews talking about their 19-year-old kids.
I want to read something that Alexander Radia, who's the mother of staff
sergeant, near Radia, killed in the Puma, the Puma, the armored vehicle attack.
She said this on, on channel 12 this week.
She said about her son, and I'm quoting, he was already exhausted.
He said everyone there was tired.
He used to call him and his friends blackened.
We're all blackened.
From the moment he finished the 12th grade, he's been in an endless war.
The host from Channel 12 asked if she had a message about the war, and she broke down in tears.
And she said this message isn't just from him, it's from his friends who
are still out there on the mission. They're tired, they're burned out, this
has to end. They're just kids who finished high school. They're struggling
in every way. This must stop. Now you wouldn't hear these kind of statements
on television this way, put this way way until I think the last three weeks.
Something happened.
Something happened specifically with this disaster.
But I'll tell you what happened.
You're starting to hear from the government, from Niki Zohar, who is a minister in the
government, you're starting to hear from NICUD officials, you're hearing from Moshe
Gafni, who's an official in the coalition, an ultra-orthodox politician.
You're hearing off thethe-record briefings
that the government wants the war to end in Gaza.
So something is happening, and that shift, that change,
you can see it in the polls, by the way,
three, four months ago, we discussed this,
and people wouldn't believe it.
See, you're seeing 60% of the Israeli Jewish public saying,
end the war, get the hostages, even if this means,
we don't care what's happening in Gaza right now, okay? Just end the war, get the hostages. End the war, get the hostages, even if this means we don't care what's happening in Gaza right now.
Okay, just end the war, get the hostages, end the war, get the hostages.
And there's a poll in Israel,盛, saying the bigger chunk of Likud voters are saying
now the same things, right?
You have the numbers.
Yeah, I have that poll right here.
It looks like for the first time, at least in the Israel-HaYom polling, a plurality of
Likud voters are saying they want an end to the war, like a rapid wind down and that a
smaller percent actually want the war to continue. And these are voters who
support this government. To some extent people are asking, and it's a very valid
question, what exactly is Israel fighting for right now? Meaning what is the actual
plan? I mean I hear this all the time, by the way,
from Israelis who say, look, I can be on board
with continuing the war in Gaza,
but please articulate what the plan is.
Where is it going?
It's funny because I keep hearing this
from Americans, by the way.
You're hearing this from Israelis.
I'm hearing from Americans who are supportive of Israel.
And we're saying, okay, but what exactly are the goals?
Right, I actually just yesterday an American said to me,
I support the war in Gaza,
support what Israel's trying to accomplish,
but help me, help me explain what the actual plan is.
So I wanna get to this,
what you talked about last week on our podcast,
which is about this possible Tehran for Gaza deal
between President Trump and Netanyahu,
the idea being that
yes, the US getting involved in Iran and conducting that extraordinary operation one week ago
was in the US interest to do, but it was also very important to Israel and
that the Trump administration basically said we really want the war in Gaza to wind down, you know, engage in this massive
intervention in Iran, but we want to wrap up Gaza.
And so there was something around that idea or that concept that is driving negotiations
right now.
I don't know if there's actual negotiations.
Tell us what's going on with regard to a possible ceasefire.
So first of all, President Trump in the last 24 hours has said that he wants to have a
ceasefire and get the hostages back home.
And the messaging coming from Washington is really loud and clear.
They want the war to end.
The president has said so, you know, on the record several times.
But it seems that whether or not there was a form of deal of, God's a fortune Iran, you know,
we green lighted this for you,
now you do something for us.
Whether it's this or that,
it's very much in the process of actually advancing.
We know that White House officials have been speaking
with families of hostages in the last two weeks,
I've been speaking with these families.
They've been very optimistic as to the chances of ending the war.
And by ending the war, I don't mean only the two-phase deal that Steve Wietkopf had,
first the release of eight hostages, then the rest,
but really ending the war in a way that really gives clarity
as to who's going to control the Gaza Strip in the day after.
Here's where we are at right now. The negotiations are ongoing. Qatar is mediating in these negotiations.
This is on the one hand. On the other hand, it's the same question that we have had over a year now.
And that is who's going to control the Gaza Strip in the day after. And will Hamas have leverage and power in that new Gaza Strip? And what the Israelis try to do
during the war is to make sure that if the war stops, Hamas disarms and that it leaves the Gaza
Strip, its leadership leaves the Gaza Strip through exile. And it's very clear right now that disarming is not really going to happen from two reasons.
First of all, Hamas isn't going to agree to that in the way that we think about disarmament.
And secondly, even if they will agree then, no one will be able to verify.
You remember trust, but the verify rate.
So there's no way that you can verify this unless you take a
hold of the entire Gaza Strip.
So let's say Hamas says, yeah, you know what?
We're going to disarm.
We're going to give you, like the Egyptians are saying, every last Kalachnikov lift.
This is the Egyptian demand for this.
Let's say they do that.
This is the Egyptian demand for this. Let's say they do that.
If Israel doesn't have the military rule in the Gaza city, in the camps of central Gaza,
if it doesn't go house to house, there is no way that you could verify that they actually disarmed.
So what is this about?
Secondly, Netanyahu sort of added to the demands of the war, the Trump plan, which is no longer
the Trump plan, was called the Gaza and Riviera, the idea of voluntary migration.
Relocation, yeah.
Of Palestinians.
This is dead in the water.
Everybody in Washington knows that the president hasn't remarked on it for I don't know how
many months now.
It's not going to happen as far as Washington sources are concerned.
Maybe they changed their minds.
You know, President Trump can be mercurial at times.
So maybe he will hear about this again.
But Hamas is not going to sign a deal that says anything about displacement,
voluntary immigration, whatever you want to call it, relocation of Palestinians.
So that's also a question.
There are real questions whether or not Israel controls the Philadelphia corridor to Egypt,
whether or not Israel controls the perimeter around the Gaza Strip
so it has more distance between its villages in Kibbutzim and between whatever is happening in Gaza. There are real questions of how do you build that government in Gaza because one thing
is for sure, and I said this from the beginning of the war on this podcast, Israel will not
allow a Hamas rule in Gaza.
Now the question is, is this a bluff?
You don't have a Hamas rule, but it controls the government behind the scenes,
or is it for real?
And another question is, is it worth fighting for?
Is the Delta worth fighting for?
Or could we actually control that
without controlling the Gaza Strip?
So people are saying Arab governments would go in,
the UAE would go in, they will have forces on the ground.
I'm highly skeptical. Exactly.
Are they going to go house to house and have…
Of course not.
Are Emiratis or Saudis or whoever are Egyptians going to want their young men risking their
lives to help Palestinians who, let's be honest, they don't really care about?
Exactly.
And then the question sort of turns back and does a full U-turn into, so what are we fighting for right now?
If we're not going to get that disarmament and we're not going to get the Gaza relocation,
voluntary migration, and there's going to be a government there, but there's no way
to know for sure if Hamas is going to be there.
What are we going to do?
So Ronen Barr, the head of the Shin Bet, just before leaving office, made sure that his
recommendation is known to Israel's government.
And that recommendation was, and that was before the war with Iran was over, before
we heard those briefings that Netanyahu wants the war in Gaza to be over.
Ronen Barr told them, as long as there would be Palestinians in Gaza, you're going to
have Hamas in Gaza.
And because of that, the best case scenario for the Israeli interest, if it is the Israeli
interest alone that you have in mind, is to end the war.
Not with a two-phase deal then, but with a one-phase deal, because you don't want to
leave the hostages, those ten poor hostages, tortured hostages that will be left after
the first phase,
you don't want to leave them to Hamas.
If you're going to have any ceasefire now, get them all back right now.
End the war right now.
And what Ronen Barr told the ministers, told the prime minister probably,
is if you think about Hamas as an organization, believe me, they will violate the agreement.
Why?
Because they are Hamas, because they are resistance.
They are the Mawakama.
The idea of resistance, the idea of fighting against the Israeli oppressor,
it's in their DNA.
They can't do anything otherwise.
And when they will infringe on these agreements, we will need to attack them.
It's just a fact of life.
And if Israel, this is me adding, if Israel is saying,
look, if the Iranians start rebuilding their nuclear program,
we're going to attack again,
whatever the international community is saying,
why can't Israel say the same about the Gaza Strip?
If Hamas starts rebuilding, we'll attack again.
But anyway, that was the argument made by the former head of the Shin Bet just before
leaving office.
Get them all back, one deal, end of the war, get a different government there, get as many
monitoring as you can on that government, and then attack again if Hamas rebuilds.
This is your best case scenario.
And that was before they started saying, oh, we won the war with Iran.
The truth is, politically speaking, look, what happened here, to one extent for me as
an Israeli, is much more difficult to comprehend, to live with.
That is, they saw that they won in the war with Iran, and that gives them political leverage.
That's the truth then, because we have won the war in Iran.
There were even quotes in the Israeli media saying something like, from coalition sources,
we don't want to dilute our victory against Iran with continuing the war in Gaza.
So everything is so political in that sense.
And that's extremely frustrating that this is seen through a political lens.
But at any rate, if Prime Minister Netanyahu will have this kind of deal,
and will free all the hostages,
after the victory with Iran,
probably he would go to an early elections,
and he stands a good chance of winning that election.
And why?
Why does he have a,
I mean, if you would have told anyone months ago?
Because if you get an overall deal,
and you get the hostages back,
this is the real victory for the Israeli public.
And he says, I'm going, and now my next term is going to be about Saudi normalization.
Not even my next term, this term.
Look, what the Trump White House is trying to tell us,
I don't know what's going to happen and what's going to go down.
But they're saying, you know, Syria is out there.
It's possible.
Saudi Arabia is possible.
Lebanon, maybe Lebanon is, Lebanon is going to pass a decision this week saying Hezbollah is
going to disarm. Right, and this is all a path to other countries joining the Abraham Accords.
There's something bigger that we discovered during this war. We fought against several enemies.
We thought that our biggest enemy is Iran. After Iran, it's Hezbollah. After Hezbollah,
it's Hamas. What we really discover then is that the Palestinian issue and Hamas, that's our biggest enemy.
And how do we know that?
Because Iran is vanquished.
Hezbollah is beaten.
And Hamas is left standing, fighting, and killing Israeli soldiers.
Iran didn't manage to kill more than one Israeli soldier during the entire war.
Hamas killed only seven Israeli soldiers and an officer last week.
And of course, some would say, you know, this is not a good comparison because...
Yeah, it's a different kind of war.
It's a counterinsurgency versus a war that Israel was fighting in another country,
an air war that Israel was fighting in another country.
True. It's also another way to say we are immersed within the
Palestinian conflict. We are there and because of this, this is much more of a
risk and this is the point I'm making. All of these ideas of shrinking the
conflict, you remember those ideas, right? Shrinking the conflict, the Palestinian
issue doesn't matter. No, no, no. This is where we didn't manage to bring the type of victory that we brought against...
Hezbollah is also on our border, right?
It's not 2,000 kilometers away.
It's on our border.
And Israel managed to do that much more decisively.
And of course, this is because of the local population.
We didn't enter Lebanon and occupy large chunks of Lebanon or Iran.
It's because of the hostages.
We're tying our own hands in some parts of Gaza.
It's because of several other reasons, but the bottom line is that here we are almost
two years and we're still fighting with Hamas.
We still have hostages in the Gaza Strip and all the other bigger enemies of Israel, Israel managed to cope with
very successfully. And I think that this also goes to the desire in the IDF to reach a conclusion.
You want us to occupy this and have a military rule in Gaza? Okay, give us the order. We'll have
a military rule. We're responsible for everything. Schools, hospitals, food, whatever. Okay, give us
the order.
They don't want that in the IDF.
But if this is what the government wants, you know, we'll salute, we'll obey, we're
the army, that's what we need to do.
But if you don't want to do that, that would mean, by the way, that the hostages would
die because you need to take over the entire Dada strip.
If you don't want to do this, okay, so let's think about what's rational and what's realistic,
and let's not be completely addicted to fantasies sometimes of the Israeli far right within
the government like Smotrich and Ben-Edvier that's been sabotaging these ideas of getting
to a deal or trying to sabotage them for a really long time.
Here's the bottom line.
Israelis are still resolute that Hamas can't control the Gaza Strip, but they
want the hostages back and they're starting to understand it's going to be a
long, to an extent, historic viewpoint into the future to make that goal of
Hamas isn't a power in the Gaza Strip.
And you could see the sign of this with Bennett giving an interview.
In this weekend, Bennett is running for the prime minister.
He's coming from the right wing and he's saying, let's end the war.
And for him to make that statement on channel 12, to Amit Segal and Ben Kaspi, by the way,
to make that statement on the record, get the hostages back and we'll deal with Hamas.
This has crossed the Rubicon in the Israeli psyche that this war is no
longer something that is at the best interest if you can actually end it.
If you can end it, get the hostages back and make sure that there is at
least on the record a different government in the Gaza Strip.
All right, Nadev, we will leave it there.
I'm sure we'll be unpacking more with you in the days ahead on all this.
I think the possibility for a deal is, or the path to it is, fast accelerating.
So look forward to being in touch soon.
Thanks very much.
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