Call Me Back - with Dan Senor - The IDF's top secret commando operation in Syria - with Nadav Eyal

Episode Date: January 6, 2025

Watch Call me Back on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@CallMeBackPodcast (video episode will be published within 24 hrs)Visit our website to sign up for updates, access transcripts and more: https://arkmedia.org/Dan on X: https://x.com/dansenorDan on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dansenor A few days ago, we all learned of new details and viewed footage from one of Israel's most high-risk and complex commando operations. The operation was a covert mission conducted by the IDF on September 8, 2024, targeting an underground missile production facility near Masyaf, Syria. The facility, associated with Syria's Scientific Studies and Research Center, was reportedly on the verge of producing precision-guided missiles with ranges of up to 300 kilometers, intended to be supplied to Hezbollah for use against Israel. To unpack what exactly happened in this operation to neutralize this Iranian/Syrian facility — and the implications for Israel’s broader war with Iran — we are joined by Nadav Eyal. Nadav Eyal is a columnist for Yediiot. He is one of Israel’s leading journalists. Eyal has been covering Middle-Eastern and international politics for the last two decades for Israeli radio, print and television news.

You know, to land this kind of force to such a difficult operation that is happening underneath the ground, within the mountain, of a facility built by Iran, and manage to get everyone out and do this in this type of precision, this is a Hollywood kind of story of a raid. This is one of the most successful and daring raids in the history of the Israeli Defense Forces. So, we are very much in that territory of history. It's 5.30 p.m. on Sunday, January 5th in New York City. It's 1230 a.m. in Israel on Monday, January 6th as Israelis turn to a new day. A few days ago new details and footage came to

light from one of Israel's most high-risk and complex commando operations. The operation code named in Hebrew Rabot Hadrichim, which is not a perfect translation to English, but let's just for simplicity's sake call it Many Ways, Operation Many Ways, which was a covert operation conducted by the IDF on September 8th, 2024, targeting an underground missile production facility near Masyaf, Syria, which is about 200 kilometers north of Israel's border with Syria, 200 kilometers into Syria. The facility, which is associated with Syria's Scientific Studies and Research Center, was reportedly on the verge of producing precision guided missiles with ranges up to 300 kilometers. You just do the math in

terms of the reach those could have into Israel and those precision guided missiles with that range were intended for Hezbollah. They were going to be supplied to Hezbollah. The operation involved Israeli Air Force strikes in Israeli commando units including unit Shaldag which we'll talk about. They infiltrated the site, dismantled the equipment and neutralized production facilities. Syrian state media reported something in the range of 18 fatalities. With us to unpack this cinematic-like story is call me back regular and the Dava yell who joins us from Tel Aviv where it is late into the night in Tel Aviv and the dove.

Thanks for being here. Thanks for having me there. The dove before we jump into the story, I do want to alert our listeners for those who are listening and not watching. If you have the opportunity, I would actually view this episode on YouTube. We'll have the link in the show notes, rather than just listening to the audio, because we have some exclusive footage that we will be showing as Nadav is walking through this operation, and we will show those clips during the conversation.

And I think having Nadav narrate the story we are about to share will be much more interesting if you have the visual capacity activated as well. Nadav, as I said, I want to get right back into it. So this operation took place in Syria in September. It took place before the fall of the Assad regime, which I know for many of us feels like already like a million years ago, but it wasn't that long ago that the Assad regime was still in power, a regime that lasted basically by two generations of leaders, by Hafez al-Assad and Bashar Assad and something like close to half a century

of being in power and now they're gone. But when this operation happened, they were still in power. It was before the pager attack against Hezbollah. So set the stage for us. Where were we in the overall war, in Israel's overall seven front war at the time that this operation occurred in Syria? And why then? Like how did it factor into that particular moment? This September, that September of 2024 will with no doubt go into the history books of Israel and probably military history in general. At the beginning of that September, the axis of resistance still exists. Hassan Nasrallah still thinks that he's managing to somehow have a calculated war against Israel assisting Hamas in the south. The Assad regime that you just

mentioned is surviving and no one in the world in the West is expecting its downfall. Iran is still going to attack Israel in less than a month and a half later in a missile barrage. And the general feeling of the war is that something might be starting to change, but no one sees the prospect of a sea change of the sort that we will see by the end of that same month, September 2024. At the beginning of July, Israel is starting to change its tactics in Lebanon. And the interesting thing here, Dan, is that in a very targeted way, the Israelis strategically

don't want Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, to understand exactly what they're doing. But they're starting to shave off his strategic abilities in various ways. In July 30, Israel is taking out Fuad Chukar, a very important leader of Hezbollah. And then at the end of August, Israel is starting to take out inventories of missiles and rockets in higher and higher capacity across Lebanon. Now, the story that we are going to tell is about a specific place

in Syria called Masyaf or near Masyaf in Syria. It's one of the most defended areas in the Middle East in terms of air defense and the reason is because this industrial military complex of the Syrian has many factories and elements and facilities around this area producing weapons for the Syrians. And in that area specifically, there is a facility that was actually planned since 2017. And that is a facility to produce missiles, as you said,

up to the range of 300 kilometers. And that might not sound much to our listeners, but you need to consider the size of Israel and the fact that Hezbollah can shoot these kind of rockets of missiles from very close to the border of Israel. And it's important that the payload with these missiles is about half a ton. So these are heavy duty missiles.

And at the time there was a facility there to produce these missiles and it was above ground and Israel attacked that facility. So since 2017 the Iranians in cooperation with the Syrians and for Hezbollah, look at how the axis of resistance, the axis of chaos is operating here. You have the Iranians who want to build the facility for the proxy Hezbollah and it is built within the industry of the Syrians. They're starting to plan a very complex plan and a very interesting one from strategic reasons, and that is to have a factory built

into a part of a mountain at the Masyaf area, built as a horseshoe inside the mountain. From one side, you get the ingredients for for a missile and it's a one-stop shop. At the end of the horseshoe, you get a missile that is leaving the factory, about 16 rooms inside between 70 and 130 meters into the mountain. And the reason that they are building it into the mountain dam is because they want this to be completely defended from Israeli attacks. When was this target, like this facility, when was it built?

And how was it protected? I mean, it was partly protected by the depth of where it was placed, but when was it all built? So Iran has started digging into the mountain in 2017, and the IDF knows about this almost immediately. And when we speak about facilities built by Iran in a mountain, I think about another facility which is in Iran itself, not in Syria, not for Hezbollah but for the Iranians, and that is for do.

For do is, of course, the nuclear enrichment that Iran has built to enrich uranium up to military level, and it is built deep into a mountain not far from a town in Iran called for do. And in 2017, they're actually starting to do this in Syria. And by 2021, they completed the dig and the construction work and began sort of bringing in equipment to start mass producing the missiles. Okay. So why at this point in September of 2024, did the IDF and Israeli intelligence and the Israeli government

decide that that was the time to attack? And is that's one question. The other question is, as they were deciding on the why then they must have accounted for the risks then. So why then and what were the risks at that point? So the main reason is simple. In August 2024, only a month before the operation, they start a demo production in the site, in this place, owned by the Syrian military complex, and they are starting to produce missiles at that site. During the war, the Iranians and the

Syrians for Hezbollah are starting to produce missiles. And this is just a month, a bare month before the Shaldaq unit will raid and destroy the site by entering it on the ground in this daring operation. Now why would the Iranians build this site and start producing? And the answer is simple. They understand that Israel is attacking the convoys of weapons, of missiles that they are sending from Iran, or these convoys that are landing at the Damascus airport and are making their way to Beirut from the Damascus

airport. And in order to have these missiles much closer to the front, they would want to have an operational factory. Now, this factory, if it would have been completed, would have produced anything between 100 to 300 missiles a year. And by producing, I mean everything. Planetary mixing for rocket fuel, the building of the rocket itself, the painting of the rocket, the tray systems,

everything that you can think of was to be made there underneath the mountain. So this is a major threat for Israel. This is, I don't want to say a strategic threat to Israel, but it's a strategic facility for the Syrians. And it's something that the Iranians have, you know, just look at the numbers. They started this 2017, they ended in 2021. They are starting to produce during the war in August 2024.

And this is interesting. According to the idea of spokesperson and to the military officers, military brass that I've been speaking with in the last couple of days preparing for our conversation then, Israel began preparing to this operation two months before. So they started planning this operation in July? About July, yeah. And why then? That's interesting. So what was happening in July? I am assuming, since we know that in August 2024, they are starting their demo production.

And by demo production, I don't mean that this is for show. They are starting to produce missiles. The Syrian facility. This in the Syrian facility in Masyaf. And in their operation, they will destroy anything between four and six missiles that were already built and prepared. So this is not for show. They started producing.

And if they go into mass production and we know that they are starting to produce, then you could expect then that then you will have much more safeguards in the facility because this facility is fully operational and then for instance you can have air defenses in that facility there to try and defend from any sort of raid. So this is really the sweet spot in which it starts to be operational. All the equipment is already in. They made all the investment. Israel has an amazing

intelligence. Some of our viewers who are seeing this on YouTube might see, and this is the IDF releasing this, the entire planning of the inside of the facility. So we know that Israel knows about this from day one and they are waiting for the right moment and the challenge here is clear. You cannot attack this from the air because this is built into the mountain. And if you attack this through the air, you might take out the two or three doors into the facility. There are actually two main doors to the facility, which are huge gates built into the mountain, but they

will be able to dig their way inside and salvage part of the equipment and their abilities and restructure. So the decision, when they look at this threat, at the general staff and mainly the Israeli Air Force, and their conclusion is extremely radical. They say we need to land a special unit, what they call in the US, I think, Dan, a tier one unit, like Delta Force, on the ground. And they need to go underneath the ground, into the mountain, to sabotage this place and get out of there before the Syrian army, the entire Syrian army, comes and tries to attack

them. And they need to do this during war, when Israel is fighting multiple fronts at the same time. And they know that the Syrians, Hezbollah, and the Iranians are on full alert. This is not attacking the North Korean nuclear reactor in Syria in one bright day. In 2007. Yeah, more than 15 years ago, in which this is peacetime. No, you need to do this during war.

And in order to get the fighters of Shaldagh there, they need to get 200 kilometers, 127 miles I think, from the Israeli border undetected to land and of course to bring them back all home. And this is a huge challenge because for instance they don't know maybe there are people inside, maybe the entire site is booby-trapped and you need a big force to do that. This is not five or ten people. The number of the fighters who were part of the soldiers that were part of this operation is about 120 commando and about 70 Shaldagh fighters. So you mentioned Shaldagh.

Just give us a picture of everyone involved on the military side. So Shaldagh is a tier one sort of Delta Force unit that would take out threats on the ground with infantry fighters with commando abilities. And this unit has conducted during the war hundreds of operations and we're not exposed to all of these operations. So you have the Shaldagh unit. They're the main people who are going to be on the ground. But you have the Israeli Air Force.

So you have about 21 fighter jets that are part of this operation because it will begin with an aerial bombardment. And this aerial bombardment will take out threats in the region, but it will also serve as a decoy to the ground attack of the Shaldagh Special Unit. But it will also give backup if this operation goes wrong. And then you have another 14 cargo airplanes. This is how it's described by the IDF spokesperson. And I am presuming as a private citizen that some of those car war air planes are actually

intelligence. And you have the choppers that are flown by the Israeli oil force that is in Shaldak. And these choppers are the ones that are bringing the fighters to the ground. And you also have choppers ready with Unit 669. Unit 669 is the rescue operational unit of the IDF. It's a special unit. And they are there with a specific directive. If people are going to get hurt, soldiers down, they need to take them out and they need to treat them in the field in Syria.

So one of these choppers is actually a makeshift hospital together with some of the best physicians and surgeons of Israel who are on reserve service. And now I'm going to tell you something Dan about this operation right in the beginning that I find truly amazing. 50% of the Shaldaq fighters who are landing the dead of night in Syria and are going to go through this operation, 50% are reserve soldiers. These are people who have been over the last year plus plucked out of their civilian lives. They could be running tech companies, they could be working at restaurants, driving taxis, you know, serving in

and counting in the law firms, working on construction sites and whatever it is. These are everyday Israelis who did not choose at this point of their lives to make a career out of military service. They had done their compulsory military service, but then they were called back up post October 7th to serve. Often they are leaving behind spouses and children and getting to work on the defense of israel and they find themselves in this highly sensitive highly complex highly risky operation into the heart of a enemy country. enemy country, it's extraordinary. It is extraordinary because I spoke with a senior officer that was part of this raid

and he told me, he talked about these reserve soldiers specifically and he said these are the best fighters Israel has. It's the raid company of Shaldag and it's a reserve company. It really demonstrates this level of enlistment of the Israeli society into the war effort and how the IDF is the people's army truly in that sense. But it's not only about this. These surgeons, they will go into the operation and after a few days, they'll return back to the surgeon departments in central hospitals in Israel. And a few days ago, they were in Syria.

They can't tell this anyone and they are there with a makeshift Hospital to take care of the soldiers if they get injured during the operation because the order is You're not flying out. What do you mean by that? You're not flying out. The idea is that even if this goes into a noisy operation, okay not a quiet operation, so you're being shot at and you're taking hits and people are down. The idea of the Israeli Air Force Shaldaq will have the ability to stay on the ground,

take care of the people injured, save their lives and not fly out of there during the operation because of risk of getting exposed. Okay, you talked about cargo aircraft. You talked about choppers. So I hear a lot about aviation assets landing. Syria does or did have robust air defenses. How did the air aspect, the aviation aspect of this operation, which is

considerable, given that they had to move all these capabilities into Syria, on the ground, deep into Syria. How did they all evade Syrian air defense? First thing, it began with an aerial attack that was widespread in the region, but it looked and it was orchestrated to look to the Syrians as though this is another usual attack of the sort that Israel has done dozens of times before. This area was attacked several times by Israel when they tried to build this facility over ground. So the Syrians knew, the Israelis know that something was happening there.

And the goal of these aerial attacks was to try and give an impression to the Syrians that this is not the landing of any ground forces in Masyar. Not far from this facility, there is a camp of a Syrian division. If they would send reinforcements, those Israeli jets, by the way, there were dozens of jets beyond the 21 jets that I talked about. There were another dozen, dozens waiting in Israel if this goes wrong. And one of the reasons for that is that 30 kilometers away, there's the Hamimim Air

Base, which is the major air base in the area of the Russians. And of course, the Russians have their own abilities in the region because remember, Dan, this was before the fall of Assad. And at any rate, this is one of the most condensed areas of air defenses in the region. So they were creating an envelope of fire to try and soften the landing of the ground forces. And then these fighters are flying out of Israel, and they're flying out of Israel with four

CH-53 I think is the American name for your helicopters and they're flying out of Israel and the way that they're flying is they're flying through the sea. They're flying very low so that they will not be detected by radar. I'm understanding something like 60 feet altitude, right? Right. they will not be detected by radar. My understanding is something like 60 feet altitude, right? Right, super low. And they're flying not through Lebanon, but flying through the Mediterranean to Syria,

so bypassing parts of Lebanon. And then they began landing. The idea here, Nadav, is the route they're taking and the low altitude they're flying at is just so people can visualize this, they're flying below Syrian radar. They are trying to, to make sure that they're flying at is just so people can visualize this, they're flying below Syrian radar. They are trying to make sure that they're not detected.

It's about 18 minutes of flight just within the Syrian territory. And this is the second most defended area in Syria after Damascus. You basically, if you see a helicopter like that, these are heavy helicopters. So if you have an anti-tank weapon with you, a very cheap kind of missile that you can shoot against tanks, and you see these helicopters physically, you can down them quite easily. So there are three main forces here that are going to go into the ground operation. So force one was to isolate the area so reinforcement wouldn't be coming. They need to secure the area and they know that there are combat Syrian infantry on the

premises. It's defended by dozens. And you also had the minute Israel started bombing the area, and this was not exactly something that they saw coming, they started seeing forces coming towards the site. So force one is isolating the site, securing the site, making sure that this Syrian division is not going to come. Second force is the initial penetration force and their job is very simple they need to penetrate into the mountain into the facility

deep into the mountain between again between 70 and 130 meters into the mountain and they need to sabotage and that's the third force. The fifth force is the sabotage unit and they are carrying the explosives in order to destroy the facility. So these are the three types of forces that are there, but these are the three types of forces of Shaldag. You have 669 and you have fighter jets ready in Israel and you have fighter jets in the air ready to go into another attack again if something goes wrong.

And at the end of the day, it's the intelligence that they brought that allowed Shaldag and the other units to deliver the kind of result that they did. Nadav, tell me about the ground team that entered the facilities. What did they actually do and how long did it take them to do it? You are asking about the force that is raiding the site, the initial penetration. A few minutes before they were landing, the Israeli Air Force is still attacking the region. So this is how synchronized this was. They are on the way to the site with the helicopters.

They're about 10 minutes into the flight. They have eight minutes left, and bombs are still setting there. And then that raid force is landing and there is fire exchanged there with the Syrians and probably they are also calling the Syrian army saying we're facing a ground raid here so a clock is ticking and it's ticking very quickly They land and they start running from the place in which they land to the doors of the site. And the assessment in terms of threats is that about two hours after discovery, you

can already have many hundreds of Syrian soldiers in the area attacking the Israeli special units. So time is of the essence and this site, this Iranian site built in Syria has basically three entrances and they're all locked and it's nighttime. And the entire challenge here is how do you break through these very heavy gates that are really the main defense of the site? So you have the 30 something security forces of the Syrians that they are. But these gates, this is going to take time.

And this is something that Shaldaq was, you know, these were the drills. And what did they need to do to get through these gates? What was blocking the entrances? I cannot specify. The Israeli Air Force and Shaldagh, the IDF in general, they don't want to talk about these doors. They don't want to talk about the technique in which the door was breached. I can tell you that mechanically, this was a great challenge of this operation, if not the greatest challenge. And much of the time, if we look at this operation, it's about 2 and 1 half hours, three hours.

Much of the time was basically breaking through these doors. But they managed to break through the doors and at the same time while they are going through this, the third force that I mentioned, the sabotage force with the explosive is making its way. And the idea is very simple, you know, you're going to break the doors and until they are going to come here from a more distant position, also because they have heavy payloads of these explosives, as I said, 600 kilograms of explosives from what I heard, then until you break out the doors and we'll be ready to enter. And then they manage to enter the underground site.

And what they discover there is truly amazing. First of all, there are no people in the site. As far as the Israeli intelligence is concerned, it's not booby trapped, which just imagine then, you know, this goes to the chief of staff, to Herzia Levi. Herzia Levi was the commander of Seirat Matkal, and he has a lot of experience. And now he needs to authorize this operation. And he takes this to the defense minister, to Yoav have got it and it's taken to the prime minister and At every junction I guess someone's gonna ask, you know

Do we know that they didn't booby trap this don't they have cameras? Don't they have some way to know that their sport all they need to do is to blow up this corridor in two or three spots and is to blow up this corridor in two or three spots. And your fighters are jammed inside, and you have a Syrian division parked not far from there. You either have a lot of dead Israelis or a lot of Israeli hostages. And this is after October 7.

And you need to authorize that. And you need to take that risk and trust your intelligence. I have to say that with these kinds of operations, of course, the ultimate responsibility lies with the government. But actually, it's about the IDF, because the IDF and the Defense Ministry, if they say we can do this, and they present 99% assessment to the government that there are no booby traps inside and that this is not going to be crushed on them, on those special unit fighters, then the Israeli government officials will say, okay, I have to say that in that sense, Yoav Galant is really important,

Herzia Levy, the chief of staff, they're really important. Why? Because Herzia Levy sits there and he has done these kind of things. And this operation has changed because of questions that he asked. And you know, Joachim Gallant is the general, he comes from the Shayetet. Which is the Navy SEALs, the Israeli Navy SEALs, yeah. And he also knows something about these kind of operations. They managed to break into the mountain and they're starting to move through the rooms and they discover the things that they thought they're going to discover.

They discover, for instance, something called planetary mixers. So you use them for fuel for missiles, for instance. They discover the engines of these missiles. They also discover missiles that were already produced. And because this is so planned, they breached one main gate or door and they want to break the others and they're using forklifts that are found within this site. Just that our listeners will understand, how big is this site? There are cars, these sort of small lorries

that are parked there. And maybe the people who are seeing this on YouTube can see those parked lorries within the underground factory and facility. But those special units guys are starting to use the Syrian forklifts in order to open the doors. And this is not an improvisation. They knew that they're going to be there, Dan, forklifts.

And some of them were sent to get training on how to use forklifts so that when they go in there, they'll use the Syrian forklifts in order to open the other doors within the site. So this is how, you know, the type of intelligence that you have within the raid itself. And once they get to the actual manufacturing facilities, what did they do to neutralize those manufacturing facilities? They start placing the explosives around the site. This happens at about a 15-minute mark. They manage to break through, and then they start going through the room.

And they're starting to place the explosives in the different compartments of this missile factory production line. So they're attaching bombs to the equipment and to those planetary mixers that are important. And at the same time, enemy forces are moving to the area in numbers and mass, moving to the area probably because they were warned by people on the ground that were attacked by the first wave of the Israeli jets. Now, at the same time, while they are operating there, fighter jets are attacking the region, and they are identifying those who are trying to come there.

So they're rigging all the explosives, and after that, they're leaving the area. And as they are boarding the helicopters, the commander of the operation gives the order and they blow up the place and destroy the entire facility. This operation took about three hours. No Israeli soldier got hurt during the operation and now they need to get back home and they need to board these helicopters and we know in retrospect is that hundreds of Syrian soldiers were on

the way there and they fly out about an hour and a half all the way to Israeli territory and like I said about 65-70 minutes afterwards you already have there hundreds of Syrians. So they were 60 minutes away from a major complicated battle against the odds against the Syrian army and they've taken out about 30 enemy combatants the security force of the facility, and some of those who tried to get there. Nadav, how complicated was it to set up all the explosives to make sure that they worked even after the Israelis departed and they were airborne?

So first of all, in order to place the explosives, you need to have the specific payload on each machine, on each planetary mixers, on each missile. It needs to be in the right size and mainly the planetary mixers. These planetary mixers are really important and you can't get them on eBay. So you need to destroy those because they can always salvage them. They can dig into the mountain and they can salvage them. The minute that it was all rigged and then detonated when they were boarding the planes, it was already set to go. For them, at that moment, they know that they're boarding the plane.

No one is left behind, of course. No one is hurt. And they said the explosive, they see that it's exploding before they leave the site. This is really important, right? You want to know that this explodes and that the site is completely destroyed. And we are talking about this in January, but the US knows quite quickly about this operation and other armies at a certain point know more and more about this operation. Did the US know before the operation?

I don't know exactly. I can tell you that foreign armies, even before Nusraala was down, because this is the beginning of September. Israel is going to strike the main bunker of Hezbollah 20 days later. Foreign armies were going, this is amazing stuff. To land this kind of force to such a very difficult operation that is happening underneath the ground, within the mountain, of a facility built by Iran, underneath the ground, within the mountain, of a facility built by Iran, and managed to get everyone out and do this in this type of precision. This is a Hollywood kind of story. This is one of the most successful and daring raids in the history of the Israeli defense

forces. It's like, I don't know if you remember that raid in which Israel stole the Soviet radar back in the 1960s, just airlifted it. And this is the type of raid. So we are very much in that territory of history. Was the facility reduced to rubble or was it just that the machinery was destroyed? They left the facility in what condition? So the facility has not, as far as I know, has not collapsed, completely evaporated.

You cannot enter it, of course, and the machinery is destroyed and you can't use it anymore. So it's unusable. And of course, Iran has withdrawn from Syria following the fall of the Assad regime. The Russians are not there as they were. And Israel destroyed much of the defense forces that the Syrian army had. And how did Iran respond to this operation at the time? So it took the Syrians and Iranians days to sort of understand what happened there. They didn't respond in terms of an attack or a response,

a military response against Israel, the sort that they had after Nasrallah and Haneeyah and the rest. This was, to an extent, this operation was proving to the idea of itself from within, to the government in Israel, to foreign actors like the United States, about the abilities of Israel while the Axis was still there then, while the world didn't really believe that this could change, and it took out a main facility strategically that was built by the Axis in order to have missile

production very close to the front line. And in retrospect of course if Israel would have tried to do the same thing after October and when it was fully operational it might have taken many more casualties. I don't want to say many more but casualties because we had no casualties in this operation. And of course, they could have produced missiles that Hezbollah would have launched against Israel. What the Iranians tried to do for many years was to build their own military industry across the region, not only in Iran, so that they'll be able to produce and launch much closer

to Israeli front lines. Israel was attacking those areas for years. And then the Iranians started thinking about building into mountains, building underneath bunkers. And this showed them that they're not immune even there and that Israel is not fearing to risk its ground forces, its special units in these kind of operations. In that sense, I think this was important not because only of the strategic meaning

of this, but also in terms of the sense of security that the IDF has with itself. And also when the defense apparatus in Israel comes to the decision makers and said, we can do this, we can take out Nasrallah, we can take out the chief of staff of Hezbollah, we can take out Yahya Sinwa, we can do all these things in Aniya, in Tehran, and many other things. We can do these things. Then the decision makers go, yeah, you can, we saw you. And after October 7, that was extremely meaningful.

I think that the Shaldaq here proved exceptionally well how they can use a synchronized attack by landing from these helicopters and moving very quickly to implement an operation in a matter of two months within enemy territory. Nadev, you started this conversation by explaining how Iran's nuclear capabilities, at least in one of the areas of Iran, is deeply embedded, fortified, that is in Fordow, in a way that is similar to what Israel had to deal with here

in this operation in Syria. Given that that reality is often cited, that reality in Iran and Fordow is often cited as an obstacle to Israel taking out Iran's nuclear capability, suddenly Israel does this in Syria. That's pretty impressive. The comparisons to Fordow shouldn't be lost on anyone.

So how is all this being interpreted in the region? I think it's interpreted as Israel's resolve. The Shaldaq operation in Syria in September happened before the axis of resistance collapsed, but it was in a way prophetic to the Israeli abilities to make sure that this axis doesn't exist anymore. And Fodou is a much more complicated scenario, much more fortified into the mountain, more than a thousand kilometers away from Israel. It's going to be much more complicated. I am not sure. I don't know if this place could be raided from the ground.

So it's not about the technicality of entering these kinds of sites. It's about the resolve. What the Israelis are showing the region in these kinds of operations again and again is that they are resolved to change the paradigm that they'll restrain themselves against existential threats.

That's the message. And whether it's for Do or Natanz paradigm that they'll restrain themselves against existential threats. That's the message. And whether it's fordo or Natanz or any other sport, every place in the Middle East is susceptible to an Israeli defensive ground operation or aerial operation of the sort that we have been seeing in recent months. So what did it show the region in recent months? That it can attack with force in places further away than Iran, that it can raid in a ground operation into the mountain

and destroy a strategic site that was built by the Iranians, and that it can take the aerial defenses that may take out the aircrafts that are allowing these these operations to actually happen. This is what Israel has demonstrated to the region. But it's also demonstrating it to Washington and I think that's an important point. The incoming administration has, shall we say, no time or patience for Iran and Iran's nuclear program. And if Israel can demonstrate that Israel can deal with Iran's nuclear program,

that it can take it out, it may need some resources from the U.S. to assist Israel with doing it, but not personnel, not deploying American military personnel to do it is really military personnel would do it just need some other resources that would enable and augment the israeli military personnel is real saying. I think look what we can do so back us up cuz we want to do this let me add an interesting bit to that. up because we want to do this. Let me add an interesting bit to that. If you would have asked me then a year and a half ago, can Israel effectively, about 70% or more,

take out the Iranian nuclear program? I would tell you that when I converse with Israeli officials, they say they're not sure. I think that there is much more certainty with Israel that giving the right tools, the right ammunition, the right assistance and backing from D.C., Israel can take out this threat with a high degree of effectiveness. Now there are questions of Iranian response, of what happens the day after, diplomatic

questions that without the U. US, become material and strategic. So at any rate, you need the US in. But I think one of the things that happened during this war, ironically, that began with such a tremendous victory for the axis of resistance and such a terrible failure for Israel, is that Israel has proven to the world, to the region, as you said, most importantly to the US, that as Ariel Sharon used to say,

it can deal with its threats against it by itself and for itself. And he would say that again and again, by itself and for itself in Hebrew. I'm translating. And I think that this point was proven without a doubt and the Shaldag operation is just another very courageous demonstration. Nadav, we'll leave it there. I know it's very late where you are, so thank you as always for

your time and insight and particularly with this reporting. And I'm sure they'll be following additional chapters on this and related operations in the weeks ahead. Thank you Dan. My pleasure. That's our show for today. Call Me Back is produced and edited by Alain Benatar, our media manager is Rebecca Strom. Additional editing by Martin Huérgaux, research by Gabe Silverstein. Until next time, I'm your host Dan Sinor.