Call Me Back - with Dan Senor - The hostage deal: a new phase in the war - with Amos Harel

Episode Date: November 23, 2023

Amos Harel has been the military correspondent and defense analyst for Israel's Haaretz newspaper for 25 years. He is among the most well-sourced and thoughtful journalists and analysts covering Israeli security affairs inside Israel. Prior to his current position, Amos spent four years as night editor for the Haaretz Hebrew print edition, and from 1999-2005 he was the anchor on a weekly Army Radio program about defense issues. Along with frequent "Call Me Back" guest and Fauda co-creator Avi Issacharoff, Amos co-wrote a book about the Second Intifada, called "The Seventh War: How we won and why we lost the war with the Palestinians", which was published in 2004 and translated into several languages, including Arabic. Amos and Avi also co-wrote "34 Days: Israel, Hezbollah and the War in Lebanon", about the war of 2006, which was published in 2008. How to find Amos's book:"34 Days: Israel, Hezbollah, and the War in Lebanon" -- https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/34-days-amos-harel/1101905140?ean=9780230611542

The whole efforts of the country was shattered. And I think that it will take a lot of time for us to recover. And my personal hope is that we'll see all of those terrorists who were involved in this slaughter, in this massacre, pay the ultimate price. I really do hope that the IDF would kill them all. But would that mean that we actually won the war? I think that this is problematic. And we need to survive somehow in this region. And we need to be stronger and tougher.

And there are a lot of conclusions from that regarding the IDF, our strategic behavior in the region at large, our relationship with the United States, all of that. But I don't think that a decisive victory is in the cards. It's much more complicated than that. We can try to improve our situation, but that's not the end of the story. I'm not talking in terms of victory. And I'm sad to say this, but this is the reality. It is Thursday, November 23rd at 10 a.m. in New York City. Happy Thanksgiving.

It is 5 p.m. in Israel as Israelis brace for the implementation of the return of the first group of hostages from Gaza. According to latest reports, the implementation of the ceasefire and the release of the first hostages has been delayed until tomorrow, Friday, November 24th, with the ceasefire to be implemented at 9 a.m. and the first group of 13 hostages to be released at 4 p.m. Both of those are Israel times. To discuss the implementation of the hostage deal and the implications for the future of this war, which does seem to be entering a new phase as a result of the hostage deal, we will be joined by Amos Harrell. Amos is one of the busiest people in journalism in Israel. He is one of the top, if not the top, national security reporter, and we are very much looking forward to this conversation. Just a little bit of background on Amos. He's been a military correspondent and defense analyst for Haaretz, one of Israel's leading national newspapers for the last 12 years.

Prior to his current position, Amos spent four years as the night editor for the Haaretz Hebrew print edition, and from 1999 to 2005, he was the anchor on a weekly army radio program about defense issues. Now, I first got to know Amos in Israel many, many, many years ago through Avi Issacharoff, who's been a regular guest on this podcast and is a close friend. Avi and Amos used to be reporting partners at Haaretz. They worked together covering the Arab world, covering the Palestinian communities in the West Bank and Gaza. The two of them really collectively penetrated a lot of sources in the terrorist organizations operating in the West Bank and Gaza and in Lebanon. And obviously they have tremendous sources within the defense establishment. And they wrote a book about

the second Intifada, which was published in 2004, called The Seventh War, How We Won and Why We Lost the War with the Palestinians, which was translated into several languages, including Arabic. It was a bestseller in Israel. And Avi Anamos also wrote another book in 2008 about the Second Lebanon War, which was called 34 Days, Israel, Hezbollah, and the War in Lebanon. It was about the Second Lebanon War, which was in 2006. I highly recommend this book, 34 Days, if you can get your hands on it, because this book in particular is very instructive about what Israel is dealing with in the north with Hezbollah and the considerations the Israeli government must be going through when it thinks about if or when to confront Hezbollah. But now on to our conversation with Amos Harrell on the hostage

deal, where it actually stands, and what it means for this next phase of the war. This is Call Me Back. And I'm pleased to welcome to this podcast for the first time my longtime friend, Amos Harrell, who I think I met almost 20 years ago for the first time, I actually remember, in Tel Aviv. Amos, thank you for being with us. I know you are incredibly busy these days, so I'm really grateful for you taking a little bit of time to help us understand what's going on. Thanks for inviting me, Dan. I want to start with what is front and center. We will get to the state of the overall war momentarily.

But first, to the best of your understanding, what are the key points of this hostage release deal? We still don't know if it's on. The hostage deal was supposed to start this morning, Israeli time, about 10 o'clock. But yesterday, Wednesday evening, close to midnight, after Benjamin Netanyahu had a press conference explaining his decision to go for the deal, it turned out that there were some final problems between Israel, Hamas, and Qatar. Now we're still awaiting a final statement regarding where the deal is currently. What we know is that there's a general agreement about the release of 50 Israeli hostages, mainly mothers and their children. We don't know exactly what the criteria is.

It's not all the mothers and children. It's not all women. It's not all young people. It doesn't include older women or older men at all. So it's just about, I'd say one-fifth, close to one-fifth of the number of actual hostages held by Hamas. The deal says that there will be a ceasefire for four days in fighting in Gaza. And in return, Hamas would release those 50 hostages. Hamas also is committed, apparently, to try and release more hostages. And if Hamas can make it to 10 hostages a day, then Israel would promise it further days of ceasefire, meaning another day of ceasefire for any 10 released hostages.

On top of that, Israel would release 150 Palestinian prisoners, all of them women and minors. This is not a big deal currently in Israel. But the main discussion is about the ceasefire, since I'd say the majority of Israelis support the continuation of the war and think that Hamas should be defeated on the military level. There are a lot of people who have second thoughts about this whole agreement. On the other hand, this is a huge emotional issue.

These are innocent civilians. They saw their family members slaughtered by Hamas. They were brutally taken to Gaza. We don't know how they're held, under which conditions. Apparently they're harsh. And I think that the majority of Israelis also feel that there's an obligation to try and correct some wrongs. Meaning, as far as we can make it, try and save

people from this hell they're in in Gaza right now, and try as much as we can to take them out of the war zone if it's possible. This doesn't mean the end of the war. I think the war would continue once the deal is over with. Do you think that there's any constituency in the Israeli public that is concerned that it could stymie the war effort? You're saying it sounds like it doesn't at the end of the day, but is there any constituency within Israeli society that thinks this could stymie the war effort and or it sets another bad precedent for Israel agreeing to a deal that rewards hostage taking? Now, obviously, it's not nowhere near as bad a precedent as 2011, where over 1,000 Palestinians were released for one soldier, Gilad Shalit,

which was a very lopsided deal. And obviously, Sinwar was part of that deal. And he got out of two or three life sentences and got back to Gaza. And here we are, you know, over a decade later with him being one of the architects of this massacre. So it's nothing like that. But still, is there a question by some Israeli society that we got burned in 2011? We will have rued the day based on what happened on October 7th for that 2011 deal. And we're doing another version of that again, and we're setting ourselves up in the future for another scenario where our enemies see what we're willing to do to get Israeli hostages back, which just incentivizes hostage-taking. I think the situation is rather different this time.

You can hear this sentiment, but mostly from the far right. The only party in the government who actually voted against the deal was Otzma Yehudi, led by Itamar Bengtlil, the most extreme member of the Israeli government. And Bengtlil and two of his ministers objected to the deal. Even B'Tzalem Smotrich, who's also quite a hardliner right-wing ideologist, he said he opposed the deal before the discussion in the government, but actually on Wednesday, early Wednesday morning, he voted for the deal. So I don't think it's a general sentiment shared by many, this whole notion of surrender to terrorism.

This is not the discussion right now. The price is too high. It's not one soldier. Again, these are dozens and dozens of innocent people, civilians, women and children, helpless there, held by terrorists, by Hamas under extreme conditions. So the discussion is quite different than the discussion over one soldier and the release of a thousand prisoners. And as I mentioned, we're talking of 150 Palestinian prisoners, and these are not mega-terrorists. These are mostly people who try to stab Israelis or so on. It's not, this is not the big issue right now. The bigger issue is the ceasefire. that perhaps because Sinoal would play for time, because Ikhiz Sanwaal, the leader of Hamas,

would try to somehow psychologically fight Israelis over this, to get on our nerves regarding this, and to arrange all kinds of emotional dramas regarding the release of hostages and those huge personal disasters that happened. The fear is that Sinaloa would somehow play this in order to continue the ceasefire, let's say for nine or ten days. He would say that he needs some more time to only release just a few more kids. It's

about kids, right? Don't we care about our kids? And then things would get delayed. And then we know that the public opinion in the United States among Democrats, or at least among progressives, is changing over that. We know that the Europeans want a ceasefire as well. And I think the fear among many who still support a deal under these circumstances is that we're taking this too far. They don't care about the Palestinian prisoners going free. They're afraid that at some point we won't have this momentum anymore and we won't continue fighting.

And again, I'm not, you know, I was never a war longer. I'm not somebody who's happy about war or military operations, but I need to say that considering everything that happened, the massacre, the terrible massacre of October 7th, I think that I myself, like the majority of Israelis, think that in spite of all these difficulties, the IDF needs to continue its job, even if that means another ground incursion in the southern part of the Gaza Strip, and even if that means more fighting and more bloodshed and more military losses for Israel. Because in the eyes of many Israelis, there's no other choice. If you don't defeat Hamas as an organization, not as an idea,

nobody can destroy the idea, the ideology. But if you don't defeat its military capabilities, if you don't drive them out, people like Ife Sinuol and Muhammad Deft, then not only are we not talking of possible peace with the Palestinians in the future, this means hell on earth for both sides for many more years to come if Israel doesn't do a more decisive job about that. Is the IDF capable? That's another discussion. What would happen considering the fact that 2 million Palestinian citizens are now squeezed into a very small area in the southern part of the Gaza Strip? These are all very problematic issues.

And yet the majority of Israelis feel that this war needs to continue and that the IDF actually needs to increase the power, the military power, military strength it's projecting and using in order to defeat Hamas decisively. Amos, this is a very important point, and I want to come back to the hostage deal in a moment, but you're zeroing in on a point I'm sensing in all my conversations with Israelis, regardless of their political leanings, which is a commitment to fighting Hamas very aggressively, even trying to eradicate Hamas to the extent that that is possible. There's no softness, if you will, in that position. That's a pretty hard-headed, strongly held view or goal among everyone from

the head of the Labor Party to all across the political spectrum to the right, which I've never really seen in all my years of following Israeli politics and Israeli public opinion. Is that your sense? What you're articulating is a pretty widely held view. I just don't think people in the U.S. appreciate to the extent to which there is this consensus. I think that's exactly the point. I think that we suffered on October 7th a sort of communal shock, a collective shock for Israelis,

maybe for Jews at large around the world. The scenes in Kibbutz Be'eri and Kibbutz Kfar Aza and Kibbutz Nahal Oz, and at towns like Sderot and Ofakim, this mass murdering going on by Hamas terrorists. This is a shock, which is by Israeli standards, considering the fact that the country is so small. It's probably for us, it's bigger than 9-11 and we've been dealing with Palestinians and terrorism and Iranian influence and so on for 30, 40, what I could say 70 or 100 years. But this is more shocking than anything we've experienced in the past.

And I think that however much people would like to forget about this, or people are still afraid of young military casualties, young soldiers dying while fighting the enemy and so on. And that's always a big deal in Israel. There's still this communal memory of this disaster on October

7. And in the end, these were death squads. This was nothing else. These were death squads. It's not a military operation. This was a military operation. This was a terrorist operation. And more than that, this was meant to strike fear at the heart of Jews, at the heart of Israelis and to gradually drive us out of the country or the region. Hamas leaders actually bragged about this to the New York Times, saying we're changing

the rules of the game. We're hijacking, if you like, the Palestinian struggle against Times saying we're changing the rules of the game, we're hijacking, if you'd like, the Palestinian struggle against Israel, and we're forcing our version of this struggle on the region at large. This is what they attempted to do. And all those terrible atrocities, the rapes, the killings, the mutilations, the kidnappings, and so on, are part of this. This was done systematically. The people who took part in this were indoctrinated, many of them, to do that by religious leaders and so on.

This is what they meant to do. They can now try to explain that the mob got carried away and so on. This was something done systematically. These are death squads. And this is why it shaped Israeli opinion in such a massive way. And it moved us all. I don't want to talk in terms of right and left regarding this. It's not exactly about political positions. into a collective position, if you'd like, for most Israelis, that supports much more aggressive means to be used against the Palestinians. Now there's a whole discussion in the world about the carnage in Gaza, 15,000 people who died, maybe more, two-thirds of them civilians and so on, the destruction in the northern

part of Gaza. Gaza looks like many cities now, looks like many cities who went through such fighting in recent years, Mosul and Raqqa, and there are other towns across the region who suffered. You're referring to the ISIS wars, basically the towns in Iraq and elsewhere where the U.S. forces decimated, completely did. I'm quite familiar with what happened in Mosul in particular, completely flattened Mosul. And you're right, it looks no different. Gaza today looks no different than those places where the U.S. decided we just have to wipe out ISIS. So the destruction is quite similar. The

difference, of course, is that this is happening next door. It's not happening 7,000 miles away. It's happening a mile away from Kibbutz Lachal Oz, less than a mile from Kibbutz Lachal Oz, or from Kibbutz Kfar Aza, or two miles from Sderot. So it's happening next door. And Israelis now, even liberal-leaning Israelis, have less patience for the world complaining about this, considering what has happened, and considering the fact that this has remained unsolved. We still have 235 people kidnapped by Hamas, hostages, held hostages. Mostly we don't know neither the whereabouts or if they're alive at all. And these are women and children mostly, as I mentioned, and old people, innocents, all of them innocents.

These were not people who were fighting Hamas in any kind of way. And we should remind your listeners that there was a ceasefire. First of all, that Israel did disengage from Gaza in 2005. And secondly, that there was a ceasefire and that Israel was discussing on October 5th and 6th with Qatar the possibility of allowing more Palestinians from Gaza to work in Israel in order to improve the economic situation in Gaza itself. Something that, for some reason, most Israelis, including myself, felt that Sinwal cared deeply about. It turned out that they didn't give a shit. Sorry, I'm not sure if I'm allowed to say that.

You're allowed to. This is not necessarily PG. I mean, you just raised a very important point, which I've been curious about. What did the Israeli establishment, security establishment, and the Israeli press, you among them, I guess, get wrong about SINWAR? Like how, you're basically saying the assumption embedded in the security doctrine of Israel is that SINWAR and the other leaders had some practical objectives

as it related to governing Gaza, and they would never want to provoke the complete destruction of Gaza on the Palestinian people living there. And yet that assumption sounds like it was completely wrong. Unless they believe that Israel wouldn't unleash hell on Gaza, unless they believe by getting all those hostages, Israel would hold back. Okay, so this is quite complicated, and it's part of a larger disaster, military and intelligence disaster, that many people call the concept, Israel holding the wrong concept about Gaza. Now, I'm probably to blame as well, although there were cases in which I felt differently,

including an article on October 5th, I'm trying to defend myself now, saying that the recent ceasefire with Hamas was wrong and that Israel was wrongfully assuming that Sinaloa is more of a moderate than it was before and that we may be taking the wrong path. I wrote this because I was listening to the right people who warned me that the majority of the experts and the decision makers fought differently, but this was a dangerous path for Israel. But going back to this concept, if you'd like, the general assumption was that Sinoiris, the leader of Hamas, a man who, as he may have mentioned earlier, was released in 2011 during the Shalit deal, spent 22 years in Israeli prison, speaks perfect Hebrew and so on.

The notion was that on the one hand, he was a terrorist, of course, and he believed in resistance against Israel, but also that he was a political leader and that having to take care of the lives of 2.1 million people in Gaza, he wanted them to improve their lives and that he needed to consider whenever he provoked Israel, that if he went too far, this would bring the wrath of Israel on Gaza and that people in Gaza would suffer. So the latest round of violence between Hamas and Israel was called Guardian of the Walls. These are the Israeli military terms for the operations. That happened May 21. And after that operation, which ended as usual in a sort of a miserable draw, the Israeli leadership, still led by Netanyahu, who stopped

being in office a short time later, was replaced by Naftali Bennett. But the Israeli leadership, both the military and the political leadership, persuaded itself and tried to persuade the public that this was a great victory, that Hamas was deterred, that Hamas was afraid of us, that Hamas was weaker than before, and therefore there was no reason to really fear Hamas. Later on, both the Netanyahu government, the Bennett and Lapid governments, and later on once Netanyahu came into power, they all were part of the same belief that Hamas could be both deterred and could also be persuaded to be part of a long-term ceasefire. There's no chance of talking about a final peace agreement with them because Hamas would never recognize Israel ideologically. they could be bribed, if you like, through Qatari money and through work permits for Gazans in Israel to resume the ceasefire for a long time. And this, of course, was a terrible mistake. The

Qatari money pouring into Gaza was mostly spent on digging those tunnels and buying those rockets and buying those RPGs and buying AK-47s and so on. And they were spending all this time preparing for this, their masterstroke, this terrible attack which ended in this massacre all across the towns and villages along the Gaza border. This is what they were preparing for. They were intentionally misleading

both Israel and the world, saying, yes, of course we oppose Israel, the Zionist entity, yes, of course we oppose Israel, the Zionist entity, but for the time being we can live in peace and we're invested in improving the lives of Gaza. Now, look, Israel has suffered an extreme blow, but the price to pay for Gazans is much more. Not only the sheer numbers.

Think of the northern part of the Gaza Strip. Not only Gaza City. Gaza Strip, the northern part, is destroyed. This is something similar, in a way, to the Nakba, their disaster in 1948 during the War of Independence. Half of the Gazan population had to leave their homes because Israel warned them that if not, they may be caught in the crossfire between the IDF and Hamas and be killed. And they're now refugees in their own area, refugees for the second or third time.

And this was all brought about by Sinaloa. The problem of course is that Sinaloa doesn't care. He thinks in jihadi terms. He sees himself as a new Salah ad-Din defeating the crusaders. And he's more than happy about the consequences because now for him, it's a chance to both to inflict pain on Israelis and also to take control of the Palestinian cause and finally defeat his enemies from the PLO, from the Palestinian Authority. It's been 49 days since the war started, since October 7th.

Why now as it relates to a hostage deal? Like whose choice was it to move now? Was it, I guess, who had control of the clock as it relates to this hostage deal now? Was it SINWAR or was it the Israeli leadership, the war cabinet? I think it was mostly about Sinoir. And I think because of the massive military pressure from Israel, Sinoir needs to cave in. It's not a big deal for him. He needs to get rid of most of the women and children held by Hamas because his intentions and his actions were actually exposed on October 7th.

I'm not sure that he wanted the world to know that Hamas was behaving like ISIS, but it was the Hamas terrorists themselves, who the GoPro cameras documented everything, and all of this was broadcasted live. And this is what created this equation of Hamas is equal to ISIS. But wasn't the broadcasting of it all part of the plan? It seems to me that that being so widespread, couldn't have just been independent Hamas terrorists just acting-

Yes, that's true. Going rogue. That's true, but up to a point. I think what happened is that their success was more than they planned in advance. I'm not sure that he had control of everything that happened. He had the idea. And as I said, they were indoctrinated to do that. But the fact that all of this was broadcast and that the world reaction was so big and

that the numbers were so high, about 1,100 people dying on the first day, most of the civilians, as I said, this meant damage for him, damage for Iran to some extent, and damage mostly for Qatar, who's now doing damage control and trying to go for a deal, to mediate as a broker for a deal, exactly because of all of this international damage. Now, on top of this, you have the military pressure. You have to remember, there's almost four weeks of massive Israeli ground operation inside northern Gaza. Hamas is bleeding. We assume that close to 5,000 Hamas terrorists have died already, and Hamas needs air. They need this ceasefire

in order to somewhat recover and prepare for the next stages. I would assume that Siloual still feels that he has the upper hand, that he has achieved this great victory for Palestinian jihadism on October 7, and that things remain the same for him. But still, under all this military pressure, he's now willing to negotiate and presumably reach a deal. You may remember that around the end of October, there were discussions of a similar deal. And what happened then was that after a few days of negotiations with the Qataris, and after a few hostages, four hostages were released by Hamas, there was a belief that this was over very soon, that there will be a similar deal,

and perhaps Israel would not take the ground incursion route into Gaza. But then what happened was that the Israelis realized that Sinoir was not serious about that, that he was only trying to postpone, to delay the ground incursion. And this is why the Israelis decided to act. Now, almost four weeks later, on the one hand, Hamas apparently, we don't know yet, Sinwal may not be as good as his word, and that would not be the first time. But apparently, Hamas is willing now to reach a deal on the one hand. And on the other, the Israeli leadership knows that time is of the essence now, that we have a very narrow window of opportunity. And perhaps if we don't get them out now, those 50 hostages, they may not be alive in a week or two.

And listen, look at the names and the faces and the ages of the people being released. These are not only innocent, but helpless people. If you don't save them now, and God knows where they're held and what's done to them right now, we may lose touch with them. Think of the Israeli tragedies. You remember the case, of course, of the IDF navigator from the Air Force, Ron Arad, lost forever in Lebanon because we tried to reach a deal and couldn't in the late 80s. You may have dozens of Ron Ar Rads, and most of them civilians.

So the general belief among the decision makers was that if you don't act now, even considering those concessions that we're making, we may lose the chance of saving these hostages. This is what happened. It sounds like Sinoir's strategic lever is the release of hostages, and he can choose how to trickle them out and use the hostages. I hate to say this so clinically, but he can use them as a form of currency. Does Israel have its own strategic lever as it relates to, it now basically controls northern Gaza, and that's its own strategic lever, right? I mean,

in terms of what it does in northern Gaza with northern Gaza and what it does beyond northern Gaza. That's true, but I don't think it has much to do with the deal. Israel applied huge military pressure. Apparently, we've reached a deal. There's a chance of saving those 50 hostages and perhaps some more hostages in the next few days after the four days of ceasefire being announced. But other than that, it's not so much about the hostages anymore. It's about what's going on in the battlefield. And what Israel would do once the ceasefire is over is, I think, continue for a few days. The army would continue working in those northern and eastern neighborhoods of the Gaza Strip. At one point or another, it will announce a mission accomplished, not meaning we've defeated Hamas completely, but we've destroyed what we've seen.

We have blown up most of the tunnels we know about. We've inflicted massive pain and damage over Hamas. Apparently we destroyed large parts of Gaza City and its outskirts. And now we're moving to the south. This is what would happen. Israel would continue to prevent Hamas and Gazans from moving back to the northern part, which is unlivable anyway. And I think it will hold a sort of security parameter of about a mile from the border, from the Gaza border, meaning preventing with fire anyone from getting near the border. It won't be enough to persuade the residents of those kibbutzim,

those communities that were attacked, to come home immediately. And anyway, we need time to rebuild all of those devastated communities. But this is what Israel would do. The second stage, and I'm not telling you any military secrets here, it was said publicly by the chief of staff of the IDF, General El-Tialavi, the second stage would probably be going into the southern part of Gaza and doing something similar in places like Khan Yunis and Rafah and all of those refugee camps in the center of the Gaza Strip. This would be

painful. It would be very, very difficult to do because Hamas's remaining battalions, around a half of them, are situated there because the leadership is hiding there, probably underground in Chamiuris, because they are surrounded by human shields, whether it's Palestinian population or our own Israeli hostages. This would be quite painful to do. But apparently right now, this is what the IDF is planning. And the war cabinet supports it.

Not only Netanyahu and Gallant, Gallant is the most hawkish member of the security cabinet or the war cabinet, but also people like Benny Gantz and Gadi Eisenkopf, two centrist ministers who joined the coalition because of the war, two ex-chiefs of staff of the army who one would consider moderates in usual times, but are now quite hawkish about what needs to be done during the next part of the war. We hear a lot about the tunnel system. We haven't seen a ton of the depth and complexity of the tunnel system that we've heard a lot about. What would it take to actually destroy this tunnel system

that you say Hamas has been using these billions and billions of dollars from Qatar and other countries and other international organizations to build over a long period of time? It sounds like it's pretty complex, it's pretty deep, and it's pretty dangerous for Israel to try to actually really clean out. I think it would be impossible to wipe out completely. There's talk of tunnels, 500 kilometers of tunnels underground and so on. We don't know exactly how long this is. We know that this was dug quite deeply, perhaps 60 yards or more on the ground, and we know that they have prepared this for years. It's true that Israel is blowing up many of these tunnels right now.

It's discovering them. It's blowing them up either by airstrikes or just by using all kinds of explosives by the ground forces. And many, many of these tunnels are destroyed. But I don't think that would be enough to destroy the project completely. The other question is whether at one point we could apply enough pressure that would be enough to destroy the project completely. The other question is whether at one point we could apply enough pressure that would mean that this is no longer an asset for Hamas. Because that's rather clear that Hamas leadership, and not only its leadership, but

thousands of terrorists are hiding on the ground all of this time. They're using this as a launching pad for attacks against Israelis in those areas in which they fight. And then again, these are small numbers of Hamas members who are actually fighting Israel constantly. The others are hiding underground and they're prepared for this. They have been preparing for years and years and years. The question is, can we at one point or another make the living conditions on the ground unbearable for Hamas. We haven't succeeded in that yet. There were all kinds of ideas flooding that with seawater and so on.

I don't know of anything that has succeeded yet. There are all kinds of talk of technological solutions. Nothing has been too successful yet, but we know that the airstrikes are being more and more effective and that parts of this, what we call the metal, if you like, the underground system under Gaza, so we're destroying parts of this, but not the whole project. It's almost impossible to do right now. Another interesting quote I noticed, I think Moussa Abu Marzouk, one of Hamas' leaders abroad, was asked, I think in an American television

station, maybe a narrative TV station, he was asked, why didn't Hamas help hide some of the poor citizens of Gaza, the civilians, in its tunnel system in order for them to be saved from the Israeli airstrikes? And he said, no, that's not our problem. These tunnels were built to defend us. The civilians should be left above ground, and this is a problem for Israel and the UN. This is exactly the concept. This is the line of thinking among Sinuwa and the people who follow him.

They don't really care about the Palestinian population. In terms of your following closely the deliberations among Israeli decision makers and even the technocratic types below the decision makers in the various ministries and the war councils and the war council and the MOD ministry of defense, what kind of thought, where do you think the, how advanced is the thinking on what, who governs Gaza after Hamas? I mean, I know there's a lot of bluster, you know, Netanyahu saying it's not going to be the Palestinian Authority. I'm skeptical that it really won't be the Palestinian Authority. It may not be Abu Mazen, but I think the Palestinian Authority option is real, at least more real than the Israeli government is broadcasting. But then there's these other options that are being talked about, some international effort, maybe some Arab countries, even though the Arab governments say they want nothing to do with it. How advanced is the thinking on this? To me, this is like a core question that needs to be

answered pretty quickly. We have two problems regarding this. One is that it's too soon to tell. We're just in the midst of the massive ground operation and the fate of the war hasn't been decided yet. The second problem is that Netanyahu is doing everything he can to avoid all issues, all discussion regarding the day after. We see a lot of American frustration with this. The Biden administration, of course, supports ideas along the lines you've mentioned.

They also talk of moving forward with the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank later on, something Netanyahu wants to avoid like the plague. Meaning moving forward with the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and expanding into Gaza. Yeah. One, the issue, and secondly, somehow reviving the peace process.

But you have to remember, it's not only an ideological issue for Netanyahu, who always opposed, mostly opposed the two-state solution, except for a short time under President Obama. But other than that, Netanyahu not only opposes that, his whole concept of political survival, which I don't see as plausible anyway, but if he wants to stay in power, he needs the far right. He needs the settlers, he needs Smotrich and Benckvill. And these guys, of course, oppose any kind of idea regarding the Palestinian authorities somewhere or somehow involved in what's going on in Gaza after the war.

So Netanyahu refuses any kind of discussion over that. You have some analysts, some people in the IDF, some people in the Ministry of Defense discussing that, but gradually no one has a grasp of what the future holds about this. It depends on how the war continues. It depends on Israel not making too many mistakes, not killing too many civilians. And it depends on public opinion, both in the U.S. and in the Arab world. Can we somehow get to a point in which the Americans support a future solution for Gaza.

The Americans are invested. The Saudis are invested. The UAE is willing to send soldiers or something like that. A long way from getting there yet. But I think that Israel needs to be more aware of the possible consequences. For instance, the whole discussion of humanitarian aid for Israelis, we don't want to hear about this right now. Golan, the defense minister, responds, I remember talking to him three days after the war started.

He said, we're cutting off everything. Let them get water from Egypt. It's not our problem anymore. And I can sympathize with the sentiment, considering the shock of October 7, but this is not reality. This is not how things work in international affairs. And I think that even now, after more than a month and a half of fighting, Israel needs to be more aware of international reaction, because it's not only a battle of legitimacy, it's about the realistic goals of the war. If you want to achieve them, you need the United States on your side. You need ammunition. We need firepower. And in the

end we can't fight this alone. The fact that President Biden deployed those aircraft carriers and so on helped us deter Hezbollah in Iran. But we need their help for Gaza as well in the long run. And we cannot afford to fight with Biden, with the president regarding this in the long term. There needs to be some kind of agreement between Israel and the United States of how we see this. Twin objectives of the war, repeatedly articulated by the war cabinet, is eradicate Hamas and return all the hostages. I've always been, in many of my interviews, I frame questions with Israelis.

Are those two goals in conflict with one another, or do they reinforce one another? I think they conflict. I think Gallant and Heltia Levy and the generals will tell you, yes, it's the same thing. If we apply pressure, then Hamas would cave in. And if we apply more pressure, then Sinual would be willing to release the hostages. I'm not sure that it works that way. And think of the fact that we had to go into Gaza and continue, and we couldn't get a deal yet. Now it's a certain window of opportunity in which perhaps we can persuade Hamas,

under pressure, of course, to release 50 hostages. But there are still around 180 more. I'm not sure how many of them are still alive. What do you do with the rest? From Sinuwa up to a certain point, there're his insurance policy. They're his human shield, if you'd like. I'm sure that he's very, very careful about not showing up above ground. And if he does anything near a place where he thinks he can be hit by Israelis, I'm sure that he's forcing those hostages to be around him and serve as a human shield.

So how do you solve this matter? Some people are saying, like Beirut in 82, Arafat didn't have hostages, but under extreme pressure from the Israelis and under the threat of the occupation of West Beirut as well, under the siege, Arafat in the end and his goons left Beirut by ship to Tunisia. Is this the case with a terrorist like Sinewal? Again, somebody who sees himself in religious terms, ideological terms, as a new Salah ad-Din? I doubt it. I very much hope that this would be the case in the end, that we could reach a deal in which he would release our hostages, go somewhere else, and hopefully somebody would take care of him not living to see old age and raising grandkids.

But is this possible? Is this plausible? I doubt it right now. I think that what we may find happening is massive Israeli ground incursion into the southern Gaza Strip, massive fighting, hopefully a defeat for Hamas, but I'm not sure that this would be done without the cost of more hostage lives. I know you got to run, but just one final question. If Israel can't meet these objectives, if it's not going to get all the hostages back, if it can't totally eradicate Hamas,

what could be considered a win out of this for Israel? Unfortunately, I don't think that we can absolutely win this in the end. Think of what happened again, October 7th. Think of how it tore the country apart. Think of the EFOS. The EFOS I'm part of. I grew up on these principles, and you follow them as an Israeli supporting American Jew.

That the IDF is always there, that we're always there to protect our people, that we'll pay any price to save their lives. And if necessary, you know, go in like Anteber or make a very debatable prisoner swap deal like Gilad Shalit. But in the end, every one of us needs to do everything to save the others. The IDF did not show up on October 7th. This is a terrible ordeal. It's not only a personal ordeal or a drama or a tragedy. This is something else. This is bigger than that. The whole efforts of the country was shattered. I think that it will take a lot of time for us to recover. And even if we, and hopefully we'll defeat Hamas. And my personal hope is that we'll see all of those terrorists who were involved in this slaughter, in this massacre, pay the ultimate price. I really do

hope that the IDF would kill them all, including Sinwa, including others in the Hamas leadership in Gaza, perhaps Hamas leaders outside of the country, outside of Palestinian areas as well. But would that mean that we actually won the war? I think that this is problematic. And remember, for years and years and years, we were talking of deterrence, which is quite a vague concept, strategic concept, that we were stronger than our enemies, that they feared us, that they knew that if they made the wrong step, they took the wrong step, Israel would retaliate in a massive way.

Okay, we did all this right now. Are we happy? Do we feel victorious? Do we feel that this is over yet? No, and I don't think that even if Hamas is destroyed and Sinwal is executed or killed or whatever, I don't think that we will find this as a final victory. I think that we will live through this tragedy for a long time. We need to survive somehow in this region and we need to be stronger and tougher. And there are a lot of conclusions from that regarding the IDF, our strategic behavior in the region at large, our relationship with the United States, all of that.

But I don't think that victory is right now. A decisive victory is in the cards. It's much more complicated than that. We can try to improve our situation and hopefully we would inflict a lot of damage on the other side. but that's not the end of the story i'm not talking in terms of victory and i'm sad to say this but this is the reality uh most i i wanted a uh a dose of reality uh in this conversation you certainly gave it to us uh so i'm grateful for your time virtually i normally get it in. So I'm grateful for your time virtually. I normally get it in person, but I'm grateful for it, for this virtual conversation and hopefully we'll have you back on. I know you're super busy and your schedule is under enormous demands these days.

I will, I will, but I will track you down for another episode or in person when I'm next in Israel. In the meantime, thank you. Thank you. That's our show for today. To keep up with Amos Harrell's work, the easiest thing to do is to just follow him at haaretz.com. And I recommend both of his books, The Seventh War and 34 Days. But I think 34 Days is especially relevant reading in this current crisis. Call Me Back is produced by Alain Benatar. Until next time, I'm your host, Dan Senor.