Call Me Back - with Dan Senor - Former Defense Minister YOAV GALLANT (Part 2) - The Hostage Dilemma

Episode Date: March 10, 2025

Watch Call me Back on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@CallMeBackPodcastTo contact us, sign up for updates, and access transcripts, visit: https://arkmedia.org/Dan on X: https://x.com/dansenorDan on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dansenor------------------------------------------------------>>Please follow this link to subscribe to SAPIR, a quarterly publication edited by Bret Stephens: sapirjournal.org/CallMeBack------------------------------------------------------>>Last month we published the first in a series of interviews with former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, telling the story of the October 7th War from his unique vantage point. Our first interview, “Four Days in October,” focused on the intense deliberations that took place behind closed doors regarding the possibility of Israel responding to its stronger adversary first, Hezbollah in Lebanon, rather than Hamas in the Gaza Strip. If you have not heard or seen that interview, you can find it here. For the second interview in our series with General Gallant, we focused on the most difficult aspect of this war - the hostages in Gaza and the efforts to bring them home.Yoav Gallant served as Israel’s Defense Minister from 2022 until 2024. He was fired by Benjamin Netanyahu twice in those two years, first in 2023, when massive protests in Israel led Netanyahu to reverse his decision, then again in November of 2024. Gallant is a member of Netanyahu’s Likud party. His military career spans five decades, beginning in 1977 as a naval commando in Shayetet 13, and serving as chief of the IDF’s Southern Command during Operation Cast Lead, an early war with Hamas that lasted from late 2008 to early 2009. CREDITS:ILAN BENATAR - Producer & EditorMARTIN HUERGO - Sound EditorYARDENA SCHWARTZ - Executive Editor of Ark MediaGABE SILVERSTEIN - Research Intern YUVAL SEMO - Music ComposerAMIEL SHAPIRO - Voice Actor

The first order I gave to the IDF about this issue is no one is messaging anything to Hamas. They will come to us. If you will message anything to them, you will consider as the weak side. So you need to take the assets, their tunnels, and especially their lives. If you do so, eventually they will come to you. And I said, put their heads under the water. Once they don't have enough air, they will come to breathe and they will talk to us. And that's what happened in the first deal.

Exactly that. It is 10 o'clock a.m. on Monday, March 3rd here in New York City. It is 5 o'clock p.m. on Monday, March 3rd in Israel, as Israelis wind down their day. Last month, we released the first in a series of interviews with former Defense Minister, General Yoav Galant, telling the story of the October 7th war from his unique vantage point. That first interview, titled Four Days in October, focused on the drama that took place behind closed doors about the possibility of Israel focusing its efforts on Israel's stronger adversary, Hezbollah. If you have not heard or seen that interview, I highly recommend following the link in the show notes.

In today's interview, we will focus on the most complicated and sadly polarizing aspect of this war, the hostages. What to do about the hostages, how to get the hostages home. Former Defense Minister General Yoav Galant, thanks for coming back to continue this conversation. Thank you very much, Dan. I'm looking forward to continuing the conversation. The last time we were together,

you told me I can call you Yoav. Lest our listeners and viewers think I'm not being sufficiently respectful or formal, I am following your lead. That's fine. And actually last time we were speaking about operations and battles and war. And this time, as you mentioned in the beginning, we're going to discuss something that is not

less important, values. And speaking about values, I think it should be very personal. So I'm with you. So I want to begin by going back to those first 48 hours, immediately after October 7th, when you and your team were assessing what Israel was actually contending with. And at that point, or pretty soon thereafter,

you knew that the nature of the massacre of the attack, of the invasion was brutal and barbaric, some 1200 Israelis slaughtered. But you also learned of hostages taken. Now hostages being taken, for Israel was nothing new, and we'll get into that, but the scale of it, 251 hostages taken. This, in American terms, just so our American audience understands, in American terms, proportionate to the U.S. population, would be the equivalent of 10,000 Americans being taken hostage.

So I often try to remind American audiences, imagine if when 9-11 happened here in the United States, we suffer devastating loss of life, and then at the same time, we're informed that 10,000 Americans have been taken hostage, which means 9-11 is not just one day, but it is this ongoing trauma with no real clear end in sight.

So I wanna take you, or I want you to take me back to when you were processing that information and what you and your team were assessing it at the time. Like when you were told there are 251 Israelis taking hostage, how shocked were you? There's the sheer shock of it. And then there's also the reality that Israel, no Western country, no country in the world has a playbook for how to deal with this large number of its citizenry being taken in captivity. Well, the most important point in this event in the very first days was the proportions. First of all, the amount of casualties that accumulate every hour, and it turned to be dozens and later on hundreds and eventually thousands. Second, the amount of hostages that we were in for in the beginning about few and then

dozens and within a short period of time, it turned to be hundreds. And although I was very experienced with the issue of hostages, including as a commander and a soldier, this was something different. And I understood that beside being so brutal, it is complicated because I knew Gaza very well. And in Gaza, everything was inside a populated area with millions of Palestinians that are part of the scenario.

So I understood very well that it's going to be very, very complicated. What kind of, at that point, regardless, I said before there was no playbook, but like in real time, are you making any adjustments to how you would immediately think about a hostage situation? We'll get into specific hostage situations in Israel's history in a moment, but was anyone say, well, this is what we do in hostage situations, but we have to do things differently?

Was there any kind of discussion about any kind of precedent for what to do with something like this? I'm fighting Hamas since it was established in 87, and I know them quite good. And I knew that they will not give you anything unless you have something that they really need. And this is not the prisoners. The prisoners in Israel- Meaning the Palestinian prisoners and Israeli prisoners.

The Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons was already given. They were speaking about Israel withdrawing from Judea and Samaria. They were speaking about how to divide Jerusalem in their thinking. Meaning in return for Israeli hostages. In return for a deal. So that's what was running in their minds. If you want to get the hostages, you have to apply a serious military pressure.

That means that after you kill 5,000 terrorists, if they see that they are going to continue, then they will think about it. The first order I gave to the IDF about this issue is no one is messaging anything to Hamas. They will come to us. If you will message anything to them, you will consider as the weak side. So you need to take the assets, their tunnels, and especially their lives. If you do so, eventually they will come to you. And I said, Eventually, they will come to you. And I said, put their heads under the water. Once they don't have enough air, they will come to breathe and they will talk to us.

And that's what happened in the first deal. Exactly that. We're taking a short break to tell you about the sponsor of this episode. We'll only be doing this selectively, but I wanted to take a moment to discuss Sapir, which is a quarterly publication edited by Brett Stevens. Each issue is built around a theme.

The new one is around diversity, not in the DEI sense. Some of the articles include Bichow Bitton on Why I Am Not a Jew of Color, Rabbi Meir Soloveitchik on Jewish Identity vs. Jewish Politics, Israel's President, Buzi Herzog on Zionism as a Method of Diversity, and there's always a terrific essay by Brett Stevens. You can have a hard copy of this print publication arrive in your mailbox every quarter, which is especially good for Shabbos reading. I am a religious reader.

My view is they should be charging for it, but it is free. All you have to do is subscribe. So go to sepirejournal.org forward slash call me back. You can find the link to the publication in the show notes. Now back to our conversation. Okay. So I want to look at previous hostage situations that Israel, because it's not the first time Israel, as I said, has had to deal with a hostage situation. It just had never had to deal with something on this scale. So I want to look at previous hostage situations, and I just want to read them off because I don't think our audience appreciates how far back Israel has been dealing with hostage

situations. So just to name a few, and this is not a complete list, there was the 1972 Munich Olympics, 1974 the Maalot Massacre in which a lot of school children were slaughtered in northern Israel by the PLO. There was 1976, the Entebbe hostage crisis. 1984, Naxon Waxman was taken hostage. 1986, Ron Arad was taken hostage. 2000, Goldwasser and Regev taken hostage, which ultimately was a precursor to the 2006 Lebanon War. 2006, Gilad Shalit, in which he was held hostage for

five years, ultimately exchanged in 2011 for over a thousand Palestinian prisoners. What had been Israel's policy and, dare I say, best practice in dealing with these hostage situations? And what, if any, of that experience was applicable to what you were facing on October 7, 2023? Well, when I was 14 years old, the Munich Olympic took place and I was collecting every front page of the paper that was speaking about the Israeli achievements in the Olympics. Weightlifters, wrestling, running, everything.

One day, the headline was that there are Israeli hostages in Munich and that the Germans went to release them and the massacre that happened there. For me, it was, I think, the first personal contact with such an event. This was dramatic, first of all, because it happened on Munich. And you know, we are the son and the daughter of Holocaust survivors. And Munich is something very symbolic. And this is after the Six-Day War, before the 73 War. So the mood in Israel was that we can achieve anything. Triumphant. Triumphant.

Altogether, it was a shock. I think this event paved my way to join special forces in the future. Two years later, it was the event of Maalot. And later on, two years later, just before I was drafted, was the event of Antebe. My instructors in the Boy Scouts were soldiers in these events. So I knew everything from speaking to them before going to the military. So everything was very personal. We knew everything.

And I'll give you one short example. In October 1986, I was in the Navy SEALs. As a young commander, I was less than 28. And all of a sudden, my commander in the unit, Edidi Yari, who was at the same time a Navy captain called me and said, come immediately to the office. I came to the office and he said, an Israeli pilot fall in Lebanon. We need to rescue him.

His name, by the way, later on we learned that his name was Ron Arad. And prepare all the forces that are possible, everybody that you have in hand with one hour, two helicopters, Sikorsky are going to land in the base and we are going to rescue him. Taken hostage by? We didn't know that he was taking hostages, but we didn't want to. We knew he was missing.

He was missing in action. We knew the general area, the location, and we want to rescue him. So I'm giving you this example to show how much we were devoted to the mission of rescue one Israeli pilot. We started to prepare ourselves. We didn't know much about the location,

about the mission, about the conditions, about the conditions, about the enemy, but we knew one thing. If an Israeli soldier is in a possibility to fall in the hands of the enemy, we are going to rescue him. So we were thinking that this is the right thing to do. We were willing to sacrifice our life, to risk our soldiers, to do whatever is necessary in order to rescue one Israeli soldier. This is the spirit of the Jewish people.

This is the spirit of the IDF because you never leave wounded soldiers or anyone in the battlefield. If someone is wounded, you rescue him. If someone, unfortunately, is died, you bring him and bury him. And if someone is in the hands of the enemy, you do whatever is necessary, no matter what it is, in order to release him. If you need, you go and you rescue him in a special operation. And if you need, you negotiate it. By the way, you mentioned 72 as the first day, but in 56, just after the establishment

of the state of Israel, we were winning the Sinai Desert War against Egypt. We had, I think, five hostages, five prisoners in the hands of the Egyptians. We pay hundreds in exchange to bring these five people. There was a pilot or two and three others. We released hundreds of Egyptian soldiers. So the proportions are there for the beginning of the state of Israel. What was the underlying policy then? What's Israeli policy or Israeli doctrine in or the Israeli protocol in dealing with these kinds of situations?

First of all, there are values and principles that you don't bend. And this is the goal, this is the target. You bring your own people and this is the goal. This is the target. You bring your own people and this is the reason that they are willing to participate in the next operation. The reason the Israelis are willing to participate in the next operation because they know... The reason that the Israeli soldiers and their mothers and their families are willing to do anything that is risky is because they know that the state of Israel is behind them. This is a legacy and you cannot do it if someone knows that if he volunteered and something happened, you are not backing him. He needs to know that the simple, very simple issue, one for all and all for one, is the

basic. Now as you speak about policy, first of all, you do any effort to release them in an operation. But in battlefield condition, sometimes you don't have this option. First of all, because not all the time, including the last war, you don't know where is everybody. Second, the conditions.

If you see six people under the ground as it was exposed to the public after this brutal action against the Israeli hostages, that they actually execute them under the ground, you see it. You mean this is in August of 2024? In August 24, when the public was exposed to what happened underground to six Israeli hostages, two women and four men, you understand that these conditions are next to impossible to release someone in an operation. It's a tunnel, one entrance, a gate, guards, and the width is less than one meter.

And as Elie Sherabi recently said in the Uvda interview, which is the equivalent of 60 minutes in Israel, the host of Uvda, Alana Dayan, did an interview with Elie Sherabi a little over a week after he was out, after having been in captivity brutally for close to 15 months. So Alana, why don't you bring out the clip and I just want us to watch it for a moment.

Two are enough. Two soldiers that are lowered from a helicopter with a rope. They take out our guards in one second and take us up to the helicopter. A SWAT team say at Matkal or something, you play that scene in your head all the time. You pray for that. So you try scene in your head all the time. You pray for that. So you try to wave your hand from the window. Maybe someone will notice. Maybe a drone will see me. Anything.

But nothing happens. And when you're in a tunnel, you pray that it won't happen. Why? Because once a soldier steps foot in the tunnel, they'll shoot a bullet to your head. So anyone who fantasizes about rescue operations from tunnels, the chances of getting hostages alive from there is close to zero. That's why our legs were chained,

so we can't move around, making it easy to shoot us. It was clear to all of us. Elie Sharabi is a hero. Yarden Bibas is a hero. Because of what happened to them as hostages, and because they were losing everything they had, the families, and they are so obliged to the goal to bring others.

You see this hero, Elie Sharabi, what he is speaking of in the interview and I spoke to him before the interview. I was sitting with him, with my wife, and I couldn't believe that someone can behave like he's behaving after what happened to him and to his daughters and to his wife and to his brother. This is the demonstration of the strength of his character and his education but also the state of Israel. It's unbelievable. This man who lost his family and was suffering so much, he's thinking about one issue, how to release his friends and those who were with him under the ground.

And what he's telling you is almost common sense. It's very difficult to operate in certain circumstances, especially under the ground when people are locked there with chains and with guards. So you see the conditions and you understand that this is next to impossible to breach in an operation. But if you apply enough pressure, then you bring the ropes close enough and you need a political tie. You cannot make the tie in a military action. So you can release one, 10, 20, but you cannot release 250 unless you have a deal. Once you don't have enough intel or the operational conditions are not ripe and time is running

short because the life of hostages is under risk all the time, you need to make concessions. And those concessions, to my understanding, are a sign of bravery and resilience of the state of Israel. It's not weakness. You are willing to pay in order to bring back your own people. This is essential. This is part of the education.

This is part of the values. And believe me, fighting for your own values is the most important issue on a personal level and also on a national level. What is the difference between those Jews like my parents and others that were in the Holocaust and the situation right now. Israel has the ability and of course the right to defend itself by itself and we are translating it. So for me, the commitment that was mentioned all the time, never again, it's not only a

phrase, it's not only a phrase. It's not only a commitment. This is a manual. Never again means that any Jew anywhere, not only in Israel, all over the world, if he is under a risk, we will find a way to rescue him. And we did it many times all over the world. We sent special forces. We cooperate with others to release one Israeli citizen or one Israeli soldier and in many, many cases even after they died.

We have done great operations with some countries in order to bring back the bones or the bodies of our late soldiers that died in wars much before that. So I think that this is a sign of bravery, a sign of resilience, and I'm willing to fight for my values, and especially I'm willing to fight for the values of the state of Israel and the Jewish people. I think many people, and I encounter this all the time when I talk about Israel's hostage dilemma, many people, including many in the Jewish community outside of Israel, are genuinely torn about the asymmetrical nature of these dilemmas, these negotiations in terms of what

Israel is willing to give up, what high price Israel is willing to give up what high price Israel is willing to give up and obviously So we don't talk in abstract terms. I mentioned it earlier 2011 To get gilad shalit one Israeli hostage back Israel released 1027 prisoners Palestinian prisoners some brutal terrorists from Israeli prisons. In fact, Uhud Omer when he was prime minister was presented with a comparable deal and he, we had Tzipi Livni on this podcast, former foreign minister at the time, they came away saying, this deal is way too generous to Hamas, we're not doing it. And then sometime after that,

Netanyahu was prime minister, he did the deal and in the context of that deal people like Yes in war was serving multiple life sentences. He was released from an Israeli prison to he got a new lease on life which included Orchestrating the biggest massacre of Jews in a single day since the Holocaust So you say to have a state of Israel means never again. Here Israel released a modern day Hitler or modern day Osama bin Laden who didn't just do never again. It was again.

It was a real live war against Jews, a real live pogrom in the Jewish state orchestrated by someone released from an Israeli prison in a lopsided deal. One thing you know when Palestinian prisoners are released, Hamas members are released from Israeli prisons, you know that at some point that release of Hamas terrorists from Israeli prisons will result in a incentivizing future hostage takings because enemies of Israel know that taking hostages works and they will, you also know it will likely result in more violence, right? Sinwar gets released. It's not like he goes to live a quiet life into retirement.

He gets released and he begins plotting more violence against Jews. So it's a high price. Dr. Erez Shabal-Shahed, Ph.D. Yes, you know, this is not only arithmetical calculation, how many versus how many. This is much more complicated. Once, because how do you recruit people to serve in the most difficult and severe situation as volunteers in special units or in the Mossad or the Shin Bet, and by telling them that you are by yourself. If something happened to you, we are not with you.

I think that this is something that won't work. Second, you know, the obligation is not only to your state and to your people, State of Israel and the Jewish people. It's also to the close group that working with you that know that one for all and all for one this is the way you fight if something happened to someone you go and do whatever is necessary in order to to secure it and by the way I was chasing Muhammad Sinuah and Muhammad death since 97 for 26 Mohammed Sinuah or Yechiyah Sinuah? Muhammad Sinuah and Muhammad death. Yechiyah Sinwar? Mohammed Sinwar and Mohammad Def.

Yekhiya Sinwar at that time wasn't that prominent. So Mohammed Sinwar, Yekhiya Sinwar's brother. Yes, the real one that running Hamas now, at least inside Gaza. I was dealing with Mohammad Def so many times and you know, maybe we'll find some time to discuss how many times we miss him. But if it's not Ihiassin now, it's somebody else. I mean you cannot change values, you can change policy, but you don't change values. During the situation that we had, the things that were on the table were to bring back the number that was spoken of was 33

hostages during April, May, June, July. Of 24. 24. And the price was less than we paid for Gilad Shalit. And the reason is that Hamas was under pressure. I want to go back to the days after the war started. My understanding was that in the days after October 7th, very senior officials within the security apparatus, I'll be careful here to protect names and positions, let's just

say very, very senior officials, assessed that basically none of the hostages would come back alive. 251 hostages taken and they argued that their working assumption was that none of them would come back alive. When you heard that assessment, what was your reaction? When these senior figures said that we won't release any hostages, I said we have something, only one thing, that is common, a common interest between us and Hamas, the hostages. We need them because of their lives, of their families, of our values, and because this is a declared goal of war. They need them as an asset to deal with it. So they won't risk them.

They will do anything necessary to preserve them because this is the so-called insurance policy that they think they have. And that's what happened. And later on when some people presented similar things I said to them you don't know Hamas they will come to us when we they will need us and they will need us to survive to live so if you kill a thousand and then another thousand and then you intend- Of Hamas.

Of Hamas, of Hamas terrorists, eventually they will come to you to discuss the conditions. Don't approach them. They will approach us. And in the first weeks, we created an enormous pressure on Hamas with the Air Force, with the maneuvering into the area. It wasn't easy to convince the cabinet to maneuver into the area. And eventually in the middle of November, there was a proposal that started from Hamas through the Qataris in order to achieve something. But it was very clear that they won't give all of them in this phase.

So the compromise I was willing to make in this point was to bring all the kids and all the women, exactly 140 kids and 60 women, and 13 out of these women were mothers of some of the kids among the 14 kids. And this is beginning of November, maybe middle of November. Later on, three of them were released, three of the women. After this, I got a call after a few days from my sister. And my sister, who is younger than me, is telling me that the mother is a lady that 50 years ago, her parents and my parents were friends and we were playing together.

And at that time, her name was Yudit Livyatan. And I knew very well our parents, David and Tommy. David was the professor that taught literature to my father. My father never learned as a young kid because of the war. When he was able to do it, he went to the university to learn Israeli and Russian literature because that was something that interested him. He was his professor and they turned to be friends. We turned to be friends with the kids. We were playing together.

When I was 10 years old, I was playing chess with her father on the coach. So I called her afterwards and I said, you are Yulia Livyatan? Yes. She said, yes, that's me. So we had a long conversation and she asked me if I remember her apartment. I said, sure. I remember the same couch that I was sitting when I played with you there. And I even remember what move I made in the beginning of the chess games because we were playing in routine. I was a young kid. So this is Israel. So the obligation is also personal to everyone.

And you know, either him or his family or his relative or something. So if I close this event, we got a list. In the list were 97 names, 40 kids, 57 women. We started to negotiate. We started with proportion of bringing 10 hostages versus one day of a ceasefire or a pause in the military actions. And the one that was leading the delegation on the Israeli side made a mistake and in one day he said to the Qataris, well, let's start with 50. This wasn't approved by the cabinet, the war cabinet. And all of a sudden the Qataris jumped on this idea and said, okay, 50.

And it came to the war cabinet. And prominent figures there say, let's go for 50. And I said, this is impossible. We have a list. And in the list, there are 97 names. And it's not a theoretical issue and the number is not the most important issue. The category is important. All the women and all the kids.

So I was alone in this situation and only three of us had the right to vote, Prime Minister Gantz and myself. Gantz was arguing me about this issue. Arguing against you. Yes. I said, you suggest to release 50. We knew that the 50 includes 22 kids and the rest are the women. What am I going to tell the 18 kids and their families that were on release after they are on the list? I'm not voting for that. And the prime minister as well was pushing me to compromise.

And I said, you know, you have majority. I'm by myself. I will vote against it. No way. And I was blamed in the cabinet and also in public that because I am, you know, looking only on the military side, which is absolutely false, I'm going to neglect these 50 hostages. And I said, no, the opposite opposite I am insisting that we release all of them and then we came with the solution that for any extra day we will get another 10 hostages and eventually we released 80 and they didn't want

Hamas they didn't want to release the last 17, two kids, B-Bus family, and 15 ladies. We knew at that time, I knew at that time, that some of them, including the B-Bus kids, are not alive, unfortunately. It wasn't proof 100%, but this was the current intel. It wasn't proof 100%, but this was the current intel. But unless you have evidence, you are doing anything like they are alive. And we knew that those ladies are not being released because of what happened to them by the Hamas terrorists. So they didn't want them to go in public and to say that. You mentioned the Bebas kids and Shiri Bebas.

So this is in November of 23, Israel is negotiating, as you said, to get all the women and children back, including the Bebas family. Hamas is trying to hold back some of the women and children for different reasons, you say, partly because they don't want these live women to come back and be able to tell the stories of what they have suffered and endured. And they also don't want to reveal that the B-Bus kids were murdered. How did you know at that point?

I know you said you didn't have perfect information, but why were you so confident that the B-Buses, the Shiri B-Bus and the two children were dead at that point? We had intel where they were murdered by Hamas. So the information was clear enough for intel, but it wasn't clear enough to declare that they are dead as it happened, unfortunately, with others. And when the B-bosses were taken, Shiri and the two children, because I know Yarden was taken separately, when they were taken hostage, is it true that they were not actually taken

by Hamas, per se? They were taken during that second wave and all these quote unquote average Palestinian civilians came pouring over in that second wave on October 7th, they were taken in that wave? Well, a lot of this information I learned from Yarden Bipas himself when I spoke to him and he described everything including how he and the shuri decided to to fight and he went outside with with his pistol and was falling in the hands of Hamas and what he learned later on but

They were captured by people that eventually broke them to the hands of a branch that is more radical than Hamas. It took another month or maybe a little bit more before we learned that they are not alive. This was, of course, a tragic event because they are in the heart of any Israeli. They are in my heart up to now. You know, I had the picture on my table,

because I have all the others on my table. But kids are kids. I mean, to kill kids in intention, this is something that, you know, even animals don't behave this way. Were there any operations where, or were there any possible operations that were seriously considered, seriously planned for,

but then for one reason or the other, you pulled back and decided we're not gonna move forward with this operation, even though it seemed very doable? I'll tell you a story that I don't think was discussed in the past. Somewhere in the middle of November, we learned to know that a mother and four kids are being held as hostages in a Shatyr refugee camp in an apartment above the ground. It was the Brodach family, three kids and the mother,

and Avigail that was with them. And their parents were murdered in October 7. And we knew where is the apartment. And we sent special forces into the area, and they stayed there for a long period of time. I'm not speaking about hours, days, long days. Just hiding there in some kind of cover, camouflage, whatever. And the conditions weren't good enough because they are in the second or third floor

and next to them there is an apartment and in the apartment there are terrorists. And the issue is, can you get to them before the terrorists can surprise them? Plus you have terrorists in the apartment itself. And we were looking for many solutions. I'm not going to discuss all the details, but we developed a special system to do something about it.

But it was very dangerous, dangerous to the life of the kids and the mother. So the chief of staff of the military, Hirsi, and the head of Shin Bet, Ronen, arrived to me and they presented the operation. I sent them for do some homework and then they came back and they said we have the solution. Operationally it could have been done, but very dangerous to the kids. And at the same time, the negotiation is ongoing about the first phase. So this is the negotiation for the November deal? Yes.

November of 23. We are speaking about November 23, the middle of November, and we are moving forward. And after they presented it to me again, I said to them, we are waiting because the deal is under progress, the deal that we are having. And eventually they were released in the deal and we didn't use this opportunity. But Israeli soldiers, including Yomam and Shin Bet, were in the area, ready to create an operation, very risky operation, risky for the kids, but also risky for them.

But I didn't confirm it. And I think that in this situation, I was right, and the reasons are there. But you know, this is not something that is 100% guaranteed. We're taking a short break to tell you about the sponsor of this episode, Sapir, which is a quarterly publication

edited by Brett Stevens. Each issue is built around a theme. The new one is around diversity, not in the DEI sense. You can have a hard copy of this print publication arrive in your mailbox every quarter, which is especially good for Shabbos reading. I'm a religious reader. My view is they should be charging for it, but it is free. All you have to do is subscribe. going back to the early days of the war, a decision at some point was made to make the

return of the hostages one of the war's objectives. At the same time that another one of the war's objectives was to destroy Hamas. And it seems that those two objectives are paradoxical. They contradict one another because hanging on to the hostages is ultimately the only It seems that those two objectives are paradoxical. They contradict one another because hanging on to the hostages is ultimately the only way Hamas can try to preserve its path to take over Gaza again. So destroying Hamas and getting the hostages back sends a message to Hamas that hanging on to the hostages is the only way they can prevent their destruction.

How was the decision, can you just talk a little bit about how the decision was made to make the return of the hostages one of the war's objectives, because it seems to be in conflict with the destruction of Hamas. I was the one that declared in the first day in front of the generals and others in the IDF and other organizations that these are the goals of the war, to destroy Hamas, to decapitize their leadership, to have the ability to maneuver in the area in any given time later on and to switch the regime and to bring the hostages. Now the fair three is something that you can achieve in a military way.

You can destroy and dismantle the infrastructure and also the formation of Hamas. You can decapitize the leadership. You can have the ability to maneuver, but defeating the enemy is only a phase in the victory. In order to gain a victory, you have to achieve the goals of war, and this is a political arrangement, a political system. Now in order to achieve the last two goals, one, to release the hostages and second to create an alternative for Hamas you need also a political action. I also defined the wording about this goal and I didn't say to bring the hostages. I said the goal is to create the conditions to bring the hostages. And this is a difference because I was experienced.

I've seen the Second Lebanese War when it was declared that this is the goal. The goal is to create the conditions. Why? Because if you have 250 or more than that hostages, you need a political arrangement. And I think that this is possible and it's even possible nowadays, today. But the order is very simple. First you need to bring the hostages and then you need to continue to defeat Hamas. And the reason is very simple.

If you will start with the destruction of Hamas, by the end you will finish it, you won't have sausages. So this is not only a value, but this is a goal of war. And believe me, I am the last one that you know, the last one in Israel and maybe the last one in the world that don't want to destroy Hamas. I was making living for 48 years from killing Ham know, killing Hamas terrorists and Hezbollah terrorists and others. And I'm willing to continue with this sequence as much as needed.

But let me remind you the simple facts. We take over Judean Samaria in 67. We went to defensive shields in 2002 and we are still fighting almost 25 years later, we are still fighting in the same places to In the West Bank in Judea Samaria Judea Samaria to to kill terrorists every day in order to protect ourselves and this is after a very successful and vast operation so And this is after a very successful and vast operation. So dismantling the formation of the military force of Hamas was very successful.

That doesn't mean that you don't have resistance because if you take a Jebalia refugee camp or Jebalia city or Sajia or other places, Let's say that in one of these neighborhoods, you had thousand terrorists, which is the average. 300 were killed, 300 were wounded, 200 escaped to Raffa or somewhere else, and 200 are fighting in a terror action, and this will last for a long period of time. They don't have the ability to maneuver into Israel

with large formation. They don't have the ability to maneuver into Israel with large formation. They don't have the ability to defend themselves efficiently as they behave. But the idea is still there. Therefore, we will fight them for a long period of time. That doesn't mean that we have to neglect the issue of the hostages. The priority and the order of preference is very simple. First of all, bring the hostages, especially the live hostages as soon as possible,

and then the bodies. Once you have them in your hand, we will continue to fight Hamas, and unfortunately, they will give us the reasons to keep going. And the arrangement is a political one. You cannot bring all of them in operations. And even Haley Sharabi said that in the video, you know, and he was there.

It's a big difference if you are above the ground, under the ground. I mean, this is the given condition. So in order to fulfill all the goals of war, you have to negotiate and to find solutions for the hostages. And I think we could have done it almost a year ago, and if not a year in April, in May, in June, in July, and in August, 24, we could have achieved a deal. Basically the deal we achieved in January 25 is very similar to the deal that we had in May 24.

I'll tell you something that is also frustrating. The deal that we had then was much better because we had more hostages, live hostages under this category. Plus, we decided on better conditions. At least 110 terrorists that were in prison for life sentence were released in the new deal and they shouldn't be released on the 24th. But let me ask you about that because some of the Biden administration officials who were involved in that negotiation are now saying publicly some of the things they had

been saying privately or more discreetly that that period you're talking about, spring, summer of 24, that Hamas ultimately was never going to do a deal then. Even if the deal could have, from your perspective, it would have been a better deal for Israel to take, to use the oft-used cliché, it takes two to tango, and Hamas ultimately was going to do a deal. And I want to read a quote here from Brett McGurk, who I know you know, and work with, who was the senior Middle East policy coordinator for the Biden administration in the White

House. He was the top official in the White House overseeing all the negotiations around the hostages and a ceasefire. He wrote recently in the Washington Post about that time, and I'm quoting here. He wrote, though Hamas and its defenders claim it accepted the framework in early July, that is not true. Hamas reinserted demands for a permanent truce, and in those negotiations it never, not once, even when nearly every other detail seemed locked down, agreed to a list of hostages

that it would release if a ceasefire agreement was reached. Hamas had no serious intent to release hostages so long as Iran and Hezbollah backed its maximalist demands with ongoing attacks against Israel. And then he goes on to say that his conclusion was, until Hamas believed they could not rely on Iran and Hezbollah, there was no point in negotiating with Hamas. And he went back to President Biden and said, we need to stop pretending we're having a real negotiation with Hamas.

Israel's not our problem, Hamas is. And he goes on to argue in this piece, it wasn't until Nasrallah was killed and Hezbollah was eviscerated and Iran was severely weakened. It was only then, which was late in 24 and early in 25, that Hamas was ready to negotiate. Well, I was the one that argued to kill Nasrallah and all the others and to use the walkie-talkies to kill Hezbollah terrorists on October 11. I knew But on October 11, I knew why I'm doing that. I wanted to get rid of the most prominent and difficult enemy that we had, which was

Hezbollah. And this wasn't adopted. So under these given conditions, when we devote 60% of our power on land and on the air to the northern border and we actually under this threat. We are dealing with this situation and I am the one that arguing every day, including with the Americans every day, that we need to create much stronger efforts against Hezbollah. Otherwise, they will hold us with Israeli formations on the border, with evacuated communities on the border, and they will do it for nothing. So I said they need to pay price every day, and this is the reason that we increase those efforts every day. But putting Hezbollah on a side, let me tell you what happened with the sequence.

It's very simple. After November, we were ready to try and to create another phase. And we knew that military pressure is the key because otherwise they don't come to you. And we apply a serious military pressure. After the second time that we have been to Shefa, the headquarter of Hamas, under the hospital, we were out of Hanunes. Hundreds of terrorists were captured and killed in those places. And we came to the cabinet as the security establishment with all the ingredients, Shabak

and Mossad and the IDF and all of them. And the idea was that we will restart the negotiation by pulling off Net Zarem, creating proportions between hostages and prisoners that are supposed to be released. And this was adept by the Israeli government in the late days of April, somewhere in Passover in the last days. I don't remember the exact day. And it was at 5 or 6 p.m. the cabinet was meeting.

And although this information was very confidential, and I will tell you what is the details that were decided on the war cabinet. The details were that we are moving towards a deal, withdraw from Netsarim corridor. So the corridor in the center of Gaza. We will withdraw from this corridor. And the decision that the cabinet take in consensus, Bibi and Gantz and myself vote for it, was that we start from the number of 40 hostages, which was only an opening position.

We will aim to 33, which is the right number. And the last line when you stop is 18 hostages. If you have 18, there is a deal. 17, no deal. Okay? This was part of the mandate. And this was very confidential because if the enemy hear that, you know, he will... Or negotiate down. Yes, he will play with us. A few hours later, after the war cabinet, the full cabinet is meeting. The full cabinet, Smotrich is entering into the cabinet.

So the finance minister… Finance minister, who is part of the full cabinet, but is not part of the war cabinet, is entering into the room and said, we are going to leave the government because they are going to decide, the war cabinet, they are going to decide about the deal on 18 hostages. How did he learn about it? I don't know. But no one in the cabinet, in the the full cabinet understood what he is speaking about because they weren't exposed to the information.

And at the same time, I got reports for the Shembet that they are having in Israel a successful negotiation with the Egyptians. And it started on the right way. And there is a room to maneuver and we are going forward. And a few hours later, I got a call from the prime minister. It was close to midnight, maybe 11 o'clock. And he said, did you see what's going on in the media? I said, no.

What are going on in the media? I said no. What's going on in the media? I don't have time to watch media. He said we are being attacked by all the different players in the media for negotiating a deal on 18 hostages. I said to him, if all the cabinet members and all the military and security establishment was in favor. How it got to the media? And he didn't answer me. He said, everything is on the media and I'm counseling the resolution that we had the same day at noon.

I said to the prime minister, with all the respect, first of all, you cannot cancel a resolution because it was taken by the war cabinet. We have three of us in consensus. If you change your mind, you should convince Gantz because I'm not convinced. I think we should go forward. Later on, Hamas recognized that we are dealing about 40, but at the same time the Israeli media is speaking about 18 So he said why should I deal? about 33 if they want 18 and basically

the the deal was collapsing and it was collapsing because of a leak that went from someone from the Israeli system to the Israeli media and eventually was exposed by Hamas. So this is something that I think shocked me because this was a war or cabinet resolution and the goal was dear and important. And the conflict inside the cabinet was clear, the full cabinet.

Benkwere and Smotowich didn't want a deal for their own purposes. All the rest understood that this is a good deal, basically, and the deal collapsed. That's what happened. So this is the good deal, basically. And the deal collapsed, that's what happened. So this is the phase of April. Then the American president on May 28th took the Israeli proposal, put it as his proposal

and said, we adopt this idea and went in public. Now the only difference was that he was speaking about one phase and we were speaking about two phases. So during June, there was an ongoing conversation in different places in the world in order to shape the situation to two phases. And eventually on July 3rd, Hamas announced that they agreed to two phases, one humanitarian phase and second one is the rest.

And this was paragraph 8 and 14 in the agreement and it was achieved. They breached to our proposal and this is the presidential announcement. So by the beginning of July, the conditions were ripe to start the detailing of the final agreement. And then it took us 25 days to answer. And I said to the prime minister, you are going to give them an answer that they will not accept

because this is the negotiation. Do it today to save time. We gave the answer only on July 28 or 27. We wasted three and a half weeks for nothing. There wasn't anything on the table. And on July 28, we came with a series of new conditions. And I have no expectations from Hamas. The only thing I want from Hamas is to kill them.

But I have expectations from the Israeli government. And the expectations is to do anything possible to bring the hostages. Because these are Israeli citizens that were kidnapped from their beds or Israeli soldiers and because this is a goal of war and the goals of wars should be achieved. And the hostages is something that is there for a given period of time. This is a TST, time sensitive target.

If you don't achieve it on time, it can disappear. And we knew they are suffering. I think early on we all had, we all imagined how horrible it could be. Certainly after the first release, but especially after the more recent releases. We don't have to imagine because it's actually, I think, worse than we had imagined. And I want to just go back to Eli Shirabi, who we talked about earlier in the Yuveda interview. Alon, if you could just bring that clip. I just want to play one clip of what he describes, what life was like in captivity.

Ilana, do you know what it means to open a fridge? It means the world. It means the world to open the fridge like a free man and grab a fruit or a vegetable or an egg or water, a slice of bread. You dream about it every day. You don't care about the beatings. I got beat up. They broke my ribs. I didn't care. The hunger. Just give me half a pita. Now you have said to me, I'm less surprised by what he said than shocked, meaning when I really think about it, it makes sense that things were that bad and it's still shocking.

You've said to me that you and the other decision makers knew about these conditions quite early on. What did you know and how did you know it? It was exposed to the War Cabinet in many, many occasions by the head of the services that they said what's going to them and what happened with them, that they are starving and they are in other very poor conditions. And this is not something that unique to me.

This information was in the hands of the prime minister and the defense minister and the senior figures in the military establishment heads of the organizations. And it was emphasized time and again by Nitzan Elon and Ornan Bar and by the chief of staff and the head of Intel. All of them said that the conditions are very poor.

So I think that the whole situation directs us to achieve a deal. And you can learn from another issue. You know, the American president went with the Israeli position because he didn't want to have a daylight between Israel and America. This is fine But what was the reason that eventually after? Hamas agreed on July 3rd. We didn't adopt what they said and I won't get into all the details, but I would say one very important issue. The first phase that was on the table in May, June, July, and August is exactly the same arrangement that we made in January 25.

So it could have been achieved much before that. By the way, at that time, going back into the war was something that was much more natural. It was a ceasefire or a pause in the war, and then you continue after 42 days. But the whole sequence was ready to be deployed on July. The deal was there and this is the same deal that we had six months later. When I met with some of the hostages, they lost 30 or 40 kilos in the tunnels. And when you see it on the screens, you understand what happened to them because the starvation is only one part. And after we heard what Elie Sharabi said, there were also tortures and beaten. This is something that was well known in try to put yourself in the mind of Hamas's current

leaders, what's left of Hamas, or a future wannabe Hamas. How could their lesson from the last 18 months be anything but the key in any war with Israel is to steal its citizens. If you take Israeli hostages, it paralyzes Israeli society, if not shatters it. It introduces a level of dysfunctionality, understandable dysfunctionality, in Israeli society and in the decision-making of its leaders that give those who take Israelis hostage a massive advantage in a certain aspect of the war. In other words, I agree with much of what you've said in this conversation in terms of what Israel needs to do and needed to do on the one hand. On the other hand, I am terrified to think

that future enemies of Israel will learn from this last 18 months. If you get into a confrontation with Israel, if you initiate a confrontation with Israel, the first thing to make sure you do, the highest priority, is take Israelis hostage. If I was one of Israel's enemies, Hamas or Hezbollah in Iran,

the first lesson I would have learned is that it's not a good deal to create a war against Israel because you pay dear prices and you can ask those questions to Nasrallah or to Haniya or to Muhammad Def or to Sinwa. They all know it with us and this lesson is learned by those who replace them and they understand it very well.

And if you will ask anyone in Lebanon or in Iran or in Gaza, was it a good idea to start a war against Israel? The answer is negative. It was a bad idea for them and they know that. They can pretend in a different way, but this is clear cut. One, so this is the first lesson. As to the issue of hostages, for me, keeping your values, protecting your people, and being able to deploy whatever is necessary in order to achieve it, this is a point of strength and resilience. This is, I would say, a center of gravity for the Israeli society. Kulam Ba'd Echad and the Chad Ba'd Kulam, all for one, one for all.

This is strength. This is not a weakness. And what they should learn is that if you hit Israeli kids or kidnap or try to rape or rape Israeli women, you will pay dear price. You, your society, your supporters, everyone, we are not here to allow those issues to happen. For me, never again is not only a commitment. This is a manual I'm working according. This means that if someone hit you, it's eye against eye, and it's not one eye, because we have to defend ourselves. We have to protect our kids. We

have to protect our women, and we are willing to do whatever is necessary to preserve our values. Value is not a neglecting issue. Value is almost everything. You are fighting for a lot of things that are more important than your life, your people, your nation, your country, your family, and your unit. You are willing to do whatever is necessary. And I think that we should be proud of the Israeli soldiers, of the Israeli civilians, of the Israeli women, and for to protect their kids. This is unbelievable behavior of the Israeli society. And I hope that what was shown in those dramatic days that were very, very difficult.

In those dramatic days, you have seen the unity, the willing to sacrifice of the Israeli society. People want bare hands into the fire. This is a point of strength. And part of it is to release their friends, their families, everything that they are here to protect. You wake up in the morning, you drink coffee or you went to sport in six o'clock and in 6.30 you hear the news in 7.30 these people, reservists and just civilians, are in the battlefield fighting for their life and other life

This is not somewhere in the other side of the globe We are fighting to defend the only Jewish state the state of Israel and we are willing to do Anything that is needed anything you have thank you again for a Illuminating conversation. I I look forward to picking back up for our next conversation. I'll be happy to. Thank you very much. That's our show for today. If you or your organization are interested in sponsoring,

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