Will Israel Take Gaza City? - with Nadav Eyal

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What really happened is that Israel paid a very heavy price for an incredibly stupid and to some extent cruel mistake it made back in March, and Hamas was using it.

And now, the question is: will military pressure lead to a deal, or will it lead to more criticism of Israel that could actually lead it to lose the war?

Will it kill the hostages, or will it push Hamas again to the negotiating table?

And I have, and this is the good news I'm going to end with: the last 48 hours, we're seeing assessments in Israel by intelligence sources and by others that there is movement as to a deal.

It's 4 p.m.

on Sunday, August 17th here in New York City.

It's 11 p.m.

on Sunday, August 17th in Israel, where Israelis end a day of mass protests and a nationwide strike against the government's decision to expand the Gaza war by conquering Gaza City.

About 1 million Israelis participated in the strike, which was organized by the October Council, which represents most families of hostages as well as fallen IDF soldiers.

While this sounds like a large number, and it did include hundreds of local authorities, businesses, universities, and other organizations, it failed to shut down Israel's economy.

But by the evening, demonstrations across the country, but mainly in Tel Aviv, reached what the organizers estimated to be one of the largest demonstrations in Israel's history.

Nearly 500,000 people gathered in hostage square in Tel Aviv for a mass rally tonight, demanding the government reach a deal.

Again, that is according to the organizers of these rallies and strikes.

At the same time, the IDF is preparing to execute the government's decision to take over Gaza City, despite many concerns from within the IDF about the plan.

Israel announced Sunday that it will resume the supply of tents and shelter equipment ahead of its plan to evacuate the roughly 1 million Palestinians living in Gaza City.

Meanwhile, Hamas negotiators in Cairo signaled this week that they are willing to back down from demands that led to the collapse of the negotiations.

Israeli officials responded that the government will not go for another partial hostage deal and will only consider foregoing the Gaza City takeover if Hamas agrees to all Israeli demands for ending the war.

Also, I want to take a moment to acknowledge that this Tuesday, August 19th, which is the 25th of Av in the Hebrew calendar, the family of Hirsch Goldberg-Poland will commemorate his first yart site, which is the Askara or first annual memorial of his passing, along with five other hostages.

It is hard to believe it has already been one year.

Joining us today to discuss Israel's plans for the Gaza City takeover and whether the operation could be thwarted by another hostage deal is ARC Media contributor and senior analyst at Iriot Ahronot, Nadav Eyal.

This is Call Me Back.

Nadav, good to see you.

Good to see you again, Dan.

And you know, you just mentioned Hirsch Goldberg Polen, and I was reminded by Orlevy.

Or Levy was, of course, a hostage himself.

And when he returned back from his captivity, he told John and Rachel, the parents of Hirsch, how on day 52, if I remember correctly, he knew the exact day.

Hirsch Goldberg Pollen quoted the sentence to him that I think originates with Viktor Frankl's book After the Holocaust.

He who has a why can bear with any how.

And Orlevy said how this sentence, he thinks, kept him alive through captivity, the sentence that Hirsch told him.

And he actually has a tattoo on his arm with that sentence.

Yeah, and Rachel told me that they had heard, I think I have this right, that this became a line that other hostages inspired by this conversation that you're describing, that Hirsch had, other hostages then as this commandment, if you will, the Victor Franco commandment that Hirsch quoted became a line that they all used, many of the hostages used with one another to just keep reminding themselves how to mentally and emotionally get through their captivity.

In many respects, they say it helped keep them sane.

Yeah, absolutely.

And this goes to the demonstrations and the day of protest that we're seeing today in Israel with people demanding to get a deal to make this the first priority.

I'm not going to present this as something that isn't discussed within the Israeli society.

It's not a consensus anymore.

There is criticism coming from the government, from some other hostage families, not the majority of them, as to these demonstrations.

But what they're saying is this is the number one priority and it should be prioritized right now.

Yeah, I just think it's important to acknowledge what the criticisms coming from some among the hostage families, and to your point, it may very well be the minority.

Is that right now, when it seems that Israel is headed for a hostage deal, the protests

can strengthen Hamas's negotiating position?

I'm not saying this is my view, I'm just saying this is some of the rhetoric you're hearing.

Yeah, Prime Minister Nathaniel basically said that this morning in Israel.

Okay, Nadav, before we dive into the topic of our conversation today, can you tell us about the news you broke over the weekend about China's plan to rebuild Iran's missile capabilities?

Yeah.

So basically, first element is that the reconstruction of the nuclear program has somewhat been sidelined by the Iranian regime.

This goes to the discussion as to what extent of damages did they suffer at the attack made by Israel and the United States.

And the answer is that the damage is so substantial, Dan, that they have basically sidelined the idea of rebuilding their nuclear program at this point.

And now they have other issues at hand that are critical for them.

And I think first and foremost is building their air defenses.

And it was already published that they're negotiating with China to get some sort of air defenses that are equivalent of the S-400, the Russians S-400.

And I think that the reason that they're turning to the Chinese is because the Russians will not supply them some of these weapons, which is a very interesting development as of itself.

But can we just say one moment, just a minute on the importance of the S-400s?

Because those are the kinds of air defenses that Iran was so dependent on that Israel had basically between April of 24, October of 24, the volley back and forth between Israel and Iran, and then obviously June of 25.

When you add all of those up, these air defenses were largely wiped out, which is when we talk so loosely that Israel has complete air superiority over Iran.

It was because these systems had been taken out, right?

The Iranians had some sort of trials made with the S-400, Russians, Russians S-400, but they didn't have a formal agreement with the Russians to supply it.

And massively, they had mainly the S-300, which has a decreased capability.

It doesn't really matter because now they're negotiating with the Chinese as to their air defenses.

Now, what the Iranians understand is what Israel understood right in the beginning, and it was trying to send that message back in its own attack, which was very specific.

October of 2024, after the Iranians attacked Israel, I remind our listeners that Israel had a very direct attack to a specific site.

And we talked about this on this program, that this was sending a message to the Iranian regime that we can take your air defenses out if we want to.

And Israel actually took out a lot of its air defenses, of the Iranians' air defenses.

Well, they didn't get the memo.

And what Israel did during the war in June of 25 is basically take out all the air defenses, all the important air defenses of the Iranians.

And they became completely naked to any Israeli attack from the air.

It would be natural to deduct that this is the first thing for them to rebuild.

What I've added during the weekend is that it's not about the air defenses alone.

It's to an extent mostly about the abilities of the Iranians to have ballistic missile capability and to scale it up massively using the Chinese.

And that intelligence services in the West are very worried because of the relationship between Beijing and Tehran becoming closer and closer.

And people who have heard, for instance, the speeches made by the Trump administration, not only by the Israelis, know

that what Israel understood and the Trump administration understood at a certain point is that those ballistic missiles, completely conventional, are as a big a threat, strategically speaking, to the state of Israel's existence as the nuclear program, simply because Israel is such a small country.

Now, if the Chinese indeed are going to somehow, there are two ways to do this.

You can supply ready-made ballistic missiles and launchers, or you can start building them in Iran.

But whatever method they're going to do, if they are going to allow the Iranians to reacquire their ability and expand it in scale, that's going to be a big issue for Israel and potentially for the Europeans and for the United States.

Now, secondly, Israel has sent messages to Beijing.

And a senior Israeli source I spoke with, an official, told me that Beijing has not confirmed to Jerusalem that it is indeed going to do that and that the intentions of Beijing remain unclear.

But this could have strategic repercussions, mainly because, as you know, Dan, for the United States, specifically the Trump administration, China is indeed the main strategic rival.

And Jerusalem is sending a warning sign here to China to the extent that, you know, the small Israel can warn China to say, we know that you're considering this, that you might be signing these agreements.

Please don't do that.

What does this tell you about what Iran learned from its war with Israel?

Well, first of all, it says that the Iranians are there.

I'll just give you another example, to what extent they're there.

They just sent an emissary to Lebanon to meet all the sites in Lebanon.

He was humiliated in Lebanon.

I'm talking about Ali Lari Diani, who's the secretary of their National Security Council.

He was humiliated by the president, the prime minister, lectured by them not to intervene.

Of Lebanon.

Of Lebanon.

Yeah.

Lectured by them not to intervene.

with Lebanese issues, which is something unheard of like two years ago or three years ago, because they were running the show in in Lebanon.

Well, no longer for them.

It was unheard of a year ago.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And he was, you know, basically told, you know, go back home.

At the same time, let me say something that people don't understand.

Iran, after the war in Lebanon, diverted a billion dollars, a billion dollars to the reconstruction in Lebanon and to paying families of Hezbollah in Lebanon.

And the response they're getting from the Lebanese system is, we don't want you to be part of the Lebanese scene.

But this gives you an impression to your question that the Iranians are very much intended right now to start and reconstruct their national and regional security, and they're not done.

And people who know Iran, experts of Iran, have always said when you have this regime there, they're not going to rethink, regroup, and say, let's focus on the Iranian economy.

We just lost $100 billion in this fantasy about a wall of fire around Israel.

No, no, no.

They want their regional cloud.

They believe it's important for their regional security as the only Shia state in the world.

And because of that, they're going to rebuild.

And this is what they are beginning to do.

If that door in Moscow remains closed right now, I remind our listeners that President Putin has basically said, hey, why won't you enrich your uranium somewhere else?

Which is basically the Trump administration position.

I think this is the only issue in which President Putin has adopted the Trump administration position as to the enrichment of Iranian uranium.

At the same time, that door in Moscow closes, we're going to try and open the door with the Chinese.

But this is becoming more interesting in the sense of how the superpowers can get sucked into the conflict in the Middle East.

And also, we all know that one of the reasons that the Biden administration wanted to go through making the relationship with Saudi Arabia more robust is fearing more Chinese influence in the Middle East.

Okay, let's turn to Gaza.

What's the latest you can tell us in terms of the idea of plans for going and taking over Gaza City?

So, in the next 24 hours, I expect that the IDF chiefs of staff are going to have a session, and in that session, to start looking at confirming their tactical operational program to capture Gaza City.

That's an incredibly complex operational assignment.

And let me quote one Israeli general.

Gaza is the most complex problem that the IDF has faced since its inception in 1948.

You have a very dense populated area.

You have an entrenched terror army that has become during the war a guerrilla organization, very much supported by the local population in a very dense and condensed area.

And a guerrilla army that uses this.

population to protect it rather than the other way around.

Of course.

Hamas definitely, I don't think anyone thinks differently.

I never heard any pushback for me, you know, when I go on international media and say Hamas doesn't care about the local population.

Even Israel's fiercest critics don't go, no, they do care about, you know, that's just demonizing.

No, no, nobody says that.

They don't care about the local population.

And you have hostages there and you have the international community.

And according to international law, you are supposed to enable the transfer of aid and food to the local population during the war.

And the IDF and the state of Israel have said that they are committed to enabling aid going into Gaza.

And all of these factors together make Gaza such a complex problem.

Now, you know, this statement, just look at the last two years, Dan.

We had this arch enemy called Iran.

Israel basically crashed their abilities in 12 days.

We had the arch enemy called Hezbollah.

Israel crashed their abilities about a year, a year and a few months.

Israel is still trying to get over the Gaza problem.

And I know, speaking with my American friends, many, many people are asking me, you know, what is Israel trying to do in Gaza?

They feel extremely frustrated and they have no good answers right now.

And even that plan that we're going to discuss about taking or capturing somehow Gaza city, the way that the IDF is planning it is going to be so careful.

We're not going to wake up after 10 days and say wow you know nobody thinks in the idea that hamas is going to surrender their bunkers and we'll see hundreds of armed men go out and surrendering the hostages there is no scenario that i know of right now in the idf that thinks that this is going to go to that or they have an operation a brilliant operation that will lead to that okay so i want to talk about the differences between how the idf would recommend approaching this gaza city operation and how the security cabinet wanted the idf to approach this operation and what they settled on.

Before I do, one argument that could be made is that if Gaza City is like the Berlin of Hamas's Germany or the Moscow of Hamas's Russia,

that up to this point has been untouched, and if Hamas was sensing that pressure was mounting on Israel and not mounting on Hamas over the last month or two with the quote-unquote food, the mass starvation charges against Israel, the recognition of the Palestinian state by all these governments or statements that they will recognize a Palestinian state by all these governments in Europe.

There's just all this pressure mounting on Israel that sort of had Israel on its back foot and Hamas wouldn't negotiate.

One could argue that Israel is saying we're going into Gaza City, this stronghold of Hamas that has been untouched up to this point, and we will take it.

And that in and of itself will bring Hamas back to the table.

I mean, that...

Regardless of what you think of the military viability of the plans, which we'll get into, there is a negotiation impact here as it relates to hostage negotiations.

Absolutely.

If Hamas really believes that you're going to take a Gaza city, and also then the question remains, let's say Israel taught that all the problems that we're going to discuss are going to be solved, and Israel is going to do that even brilliantly in a way the

local population is to some extent protected, that the casualty rate is lower than the IDF expected, and so forth.

Okay, and then what?

Hamas exists in the central camps of the Gaza strip, places like Nuserat or Dir al-Balaq.

It exists in the humanitarian areas, like the Muasi and other areas.

So, you know, what's the distress there?

The answer is that in order to conduct this kind of an operation in Gaza City, you need to lead to the evacuation of 1.2 million people.

Just in order not to hurt too many people in the process.

One thing about Gaza City that people don't understand is, first of all, that a lot of the Gazan population has basically fled into Gaza City.

So now it's about one, 1.2 million people living in that city.

These are apartment buildings with sometimes three or four or five floors.

It's a heavily populated urban area.

Think about troops going into this area.

Think about tanks rolling into these areas.

Now, some parts of Gaza City were taken right in the beginning of the war.

Central Square in Gaza City was taken right in the beginning of the war.

Turned out that they had a massive bunker of Hamas underneath.

There are hospitals there with bunkers of Hamas.

But that's, I think, the first element there for the IDF is to try and understand how it leads to the evacuation of the civilians so that there won't be massive, massive civilian casualties when the IDF goes in.

And for the IDF, and I need to underline this, they're very much against this plan.

They're preparing the plan and they're going to do it because the army and the government makes the call and the cabinet make the decision.

But I've never heard so much resistance within the defense officials and the army to the plan because they're saying, you know, we're not sure we can evacuate the same number of people as we did with Rafah.

It's a completely different situation than a year ago.

There's the international pressure.

One of the things that they're fearing then is that they'll begin the operation as planned.

And then someone, maybe in the US, maybe the White House, would pick up the phone and say, stop it.

And then it would be better not to begin the operation than to have it stopped by the US at a certain point.

Now, I have, as far as we know right now, the US is giving full support to the Netanyahu cabinet with this decision and President Trump personally.

And we heard what President Trump said.

I'm not analyzing here.

He said, remember, October 7th, he was reacting to these issues.

But President Trump also said this week that he thinks that journalists should go into Gaza and see see for themselves.

So it can change.

And this is one of the things that worries the IDF.

Another thing that worries the IDF is, and they were warned by the chief attorney of the IDF, that this evacuation is only supposed to save lives of the civilian local population.

It's not an expulsion.

And it cannot be used for immigration or forced immigration or expulsion of Palestinians or to push them out of the Gaza Strip altogether.

What was once called the Gazan Riviera vision or the Ben-Vier Smotrich dream?

If you use this to that, it's a war crime, and the chief attorney of the Israeli army has told the chiefs of staff, you can't do that in that case.

You can lead to the evacuation of the local population if you guarantee their return after the operation is over.

And you can only do that in order to have less casualties, civilian casualties there.

And considering the international atmosphere as to Israel.

But can I just say, but back to something you said about President Trump?

I mean, one thing that he's been consistent about, especially in the last few weeks, is Israel will do what Israel is going to do in Gaza.

And he has not signaled a red light.

He has not signaled even a yellow light.

I'm not saying he's flashing a green light, but he's certainly not in any way signaling that he's going to stand in the way of what the government is deciding to do.

I mean, he's been consistent on that.

Yeah, he's been consistent, but he's also been consistent on wanting to end the war then.

Right.

And getting the hostages back.

Wanting to end the war.

Well, I actually think I'm not in the man's head, but if you're right that he says both of those things, and he in his mind, those two may be connected.

That the more aggressive Israel is in Gaza, the greater likelihood that Hamas comes back to the table, the greater likelihood that you have a path to ending the war.

Whereas where Israel is now, nothing is happening.

Meaning, Hamas is not coming to the negotiating table.

There's no sign that Hamas is being, you know, is kind of about to break entirely.

And so it's like the worst of all worlds.

So yes, you may want the suffering to end in Gaza.

You may want the war to wind down.

And maybe the way to do it is actually to crank up the level of aggressiveness and the intensity of the warfighting in places that Israel hasn't fought before rather than the other.

I'm not saying, by the way, he's right or the government is right.

I'm just saying I'm not sure those two positions that Trump articulates are irreconcilable.

The answer is to what aim?

The Israeli defense officials didn't say don't do anything, right?

What the IDF had planned and suggested to the cabinet was basically not to occupy Gaza City, but to pressure militarily and do more of the same.

I didn't hear from people in the army that thought that this is going to be extremely effective, okay?

But they were thinking that this could also be a disaster, a disaster internationally.

And of course, it could lead to the deaths of the hostages.

And the chief of staff in the cabinet meeting, in a very direct confrontation with the political level, it's a closed cabinet meeting.

So he's saying his opinion.

That's his job.

He said, okay, if this is the case, if this is what you want, take out the goal of getting the hostages back from the goals of the war.

If this is what you want, you know, don't say it's a goal of the war.

And let me tell you, Dan, why?

Because if you're telling the army there are two goals for this war, getting the hostages back, making sure that Hamas doesn't control gaza if these are the goals of the war that it's not just a statement it's not a pr statement that's an order and if you're in the army right now and you're planning an operational plan you need to keep these two goals together alive and what the chief of staff was saying i can't capture gaza the way that you're talking about capturing gaza city and keep the goals that you yourself have ordered me to keep you can't bluff about these issues he was to an extent calling the bluff.

And that's just one example of the confrontation between the IDF.

Also, you need to enlist now dozens of thousands at least of more reserve soldiers.

And the IDF is now, after, you know, it's the longest war ever fought in Israel's history.

We're seeing post-trauma in its peak.

We're seeing loads of units that are having trouble getting reserve soldiers to report all the time.

And because of that, the IDF was pushing and still pushing very hard.

If you can get a deal now, get that deal, and we'll finish the job with Hamas later.

One of the arguments made by the IDF as to the hostages there is you, the cabinet, has said there are two goals.

One goal we need to get right now, and that's the hostages, because they're going to die.

Because they are being starved in Gaza.

Yeah, if you want images of forced starvation and starvation as a tool of war, you can look at the the images of Israeli hostages being held by Hamas.

So the argument there is one element is an element that is very short-lived, and that is getting the hostages back.

Another element, which is taking out Hamas, is going to be a struggle of many, many years.

Even if we do capture Gaza City, we do clear Gaza City,

still...

you know, you're going to have Hamas and you'll need to have a strategic plan for many years to come.

And that's the argument.

Now, operationally speaking, what was chosen by the cabinet at the end was a sort of a merge between the approaches.

But it's going to be a slow process.

And I just spoke with a defense official and he told me, you know what?

You know, at the end, the difference between what the IDF is saying and the government is saying is not that large.

But we're going to get the international criticism as though we decided the most extreme option that was discussed in a PR notices of cabinet ministers or their interviews.

And then the IDF will need to answer and we need to react to that.

And we both need to quote the sentence, it's a Hebrew sentence or a Yiddish sentence, to get chased out of the town and eat the stinking fish.

Both of those, right?

I think it's probably a translate from Yiddish.

You know, so, so, and, and the IEF says it's, it's always the case, you know, we're not going to do this and we are going to get criticized as though we are doing this altogether.

But Nadav, that is a metaphor for every phase and every stage and every development of this war, which is that whatever caution Israel uses, whatever caution the IDF demonstrates or exercises, Israel is still criticized for the worst characterization or worst scenario that could have happened relative to what it's actually doing.

Yeah, that's true.

But in that cabinet meeting, that's another story.

Didon Tsar, the foreign minister, who, by the way, just returned to the Likud after many years and was accepted very enthusiastically in the Likud, had a speech.

And that speech wasn't published too much because he didn't have these interviews like the far-right ministers trying to push the idea, yeah, now let's be aggressive.

No, his speech was completely different.

He told the Israeli cabinet, look, whatever you're going to get from this operation or this war in general in Gaza, it doesn't equal the level of strategic and diplomatic damages that we're incurring right now around the world.

We are just after this huge strategic success of the war against Iran, and we are being sucked to the black hole called Gaza.

And when he was speaking, unlike other parts in the cabinet, it's very adversarial.

In other words, people keep shouting at each other.

But when Gidon Sao spoke, even the far-right ministers, nobody interrupted him.

And he was saying there is no way to compare between the damages of the lasting of the war to Israel's position in the long term.

I think many people feel that.

By the way, many people I speak with in the U.S., in Europe, I'm talking about supporters of Israel, both from the Jewish community and not from the Jewish community, are saying that and are asking.

On the other hand, and I'm going to present the other side of this, so you don't need to push back there.

I was getting ready to push back, and I appreciate you.

No, no, no, I want to present this because, on the other hand, one could ask if Hamas enjoys the idea of we convince the world that there is, you know, an intentional starvation of the population in Gaza.

I don't think that there is an intentional starvation of the population in Gaza.

I think there is hunger, at least there was hunger in Gaza.

Okay.

The facts that I know of are not that the Israeli government wanted to have starvation of the Gazan population in its decision between March and May 19.

I think it wanted to pressure Hamas, but not go.

And I think that was a huge mistake.

And I spoke about this on your show.

I think they were playing with fire, humanitarian fire.

And I think it, you know, it caught fire both in terms of international media, but also in real terms.

I don't think the entire thing is fabricated.

I think there is a humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

We were going to do a separate episode on this, but I agree with you, as one would expect in any combat war environment, that there's a humanitarian crisis to some degree.

And obviously, for what you said at the beginning of this conversation, where you described how difficult the warfighting is, Gaza, and that it is one of, if not the most dense area, population-dense areas in the world that's at war, you would expect that to be the case.

But this idea that there is no mass starvation, you mentioned COGAT, so the coordination of government activities in the territories.

That's what COGAT is, which is like the military arm that deals with a whole range of military issues of the IDF in the territories.

But according to COGAT, there were 66 deaths from the beginning of the war through June of 25 due to starvation or malnutrition.

And then according to Hamas, in July of 25, that number skyrocketed to 133 deaths.

And in the past, Hamas had provided the identities of those who died, or the Gazan Health Ministry provided the identities.

And when KOGAT said, well, where are the identities now?

You said the number has skyrocketed in no time to 133 deaths.

The Gaza Health Ministry and Hamas would not provide the identity.

So, COGAT on its own went and tried to figure out the identities through news reports, through social media posts, and they only found a few deaths.

And all or most of those deaths, according to COGAT, were of people who had pre-existing conditions, genetic disease ailments.

So, it's not to say there's no food crisis challenges in Gaza.

You know, again, I don't want to sound like my hands are covering my eyes.

There's no real problem.

Of course, there's a problem.

But this whole craze we've been subjected to over the last few weeks, I at least am skeptical of.

And I know you've been speaking to military sources about this too.

Yeah, I have.

And the Israeli military has now started investing some of its prime intelligence, 8 to 100,

into looking at hunger in Gaza.

First of all, I should say, you know, why now?

We've been fighting this war for two years.

The humanitarian issue was always an issue.

I'm much less forgiving, in a sense, Dan, than you are.

I think that Israel's decision to stop all aid and food, including baby formulas, to Gaza on March 2nd, that passed underneath the radar.

And I myself didn't write about enough.

But I just, if you're going to say that, Nadav, it's important to also say that during the ceasefire, according to Israel, according to UN bodies, Israel had allowed something like over six times the level of aid into Gaza that local population needed at that time.

So it wasn't like they thought they were just turning off the spigot and suddenly Gaza would be depleted of aid.

There was a sense that there was a stockpiling of aid because they turbocharged a level of aid that would last many months past the period of the ceasefire.

I don't think we should suggest that Israel just suddenly shut down aid and there was overnight there was no aid.

I think it was a terribly stupid and to some extent cruel idea.

And here's why.

Because after almost two years of a war, if you stop all aid and food to 2 million people during wartime and you don't tell them when the aid and the food are going to renew, you don't need to be a humanitarian expert.

You need to understand, basically, to be in your first course in economy, to understand that the prices of food are going to skyrocket, maybe exponentially, because each day that passes, you have less food and therefore the prices of commodities are going to appreciate as you go by.

But keep in mind, six months of aid was pumped in during yeah, but trying to assess how much people will eat.

You know, if Israel wants to take control of the humanitarian issue in Gaza and says, I'm responsible for everything, it's not the UN.

You know, I'm not working with the UN.

I'm responsible.

Started to do that with the GHF.

But what happened is that just factually speaking, poor families in Gaza, not only poor families in Gaza, started paying obscene amounts of money for one kilogram of flour.

In some parts of Gaza.

In some parts, in enclaves, not in the entire Gaza strip.

I want to emphasize that.

So, this is an important point because, again, there's this narrative out there that it was all of Gaza and it was in, even Kogat says it was in certain areas prices went up.

Absolutely.

And then, if someone pays like $25 to $35

for a kilogram of flour,

and he has five mouths in his household that need to be fed, These are the prices of hunger.

This is something that people don't understand about hunger.

Hunger is always a matter of money.

People who have more money will buy food, even if there's scarcity.

And this population has not been working.

There is no economy.

So to do that was irresponsible.

And it was because of pressure coming from, you know, far-right ministers and because of an idea that you presented that if the minutes open first of all my approach here is nuanced so if the protocols of the government open you won't see like the defense minister or the prime minister saying oh we want them starved because it's the other way around because netanyahu is saying in public announcements when he opens up on may 19 he says we can't have this war if the population starve He understood this concept.

By the way, this is a concept of the Biden administration.

They told this to the Israelis right at the beginning.

If you want to fight this war, you want to make sure that there is enough food in Gaza.

You and I talked about this the other day, and we can get into a whole discussion about this, but I think it's just important

to contrast what you're describing with the way this crisis was being reported in the international press.

Oh, of course.

You're not going to make me defend the New York Times photo editor.

Not just a photo editor, the headline, Washington Post, July 24th, mass starvation stocks Gaza as deaths from hunger rise.

I mean, it's just, this was a flurry of headlines in virtually every publication in the West.

So what you're describing very clinically, which I, you know, appreciate I can quibble with here and there, but is not what was projected to the world as to what was happening.

Yeah, by the way, one good example to that was the idea that people are fainting and medical staff is fainting because of lack of food.

First of all, as far as my sources are telling me, and I'm not using COGAT IDF sources to that, there is no shortage of food in medical installations still operating in the Gaza Strip.

Someone actually showed me the process in which this develops.

And first you see this on Hamas channels.

you know medical staff is fainting then you see it on some unra groups like a telegram channel yeah yeah like hamas channels are are producing this then you see this being echoed and producing what's making these messages the idea that medical staff is fainting, then you see it being echoed on UN aid group affiliated of Palestinians in Gaza.

Then you see this finding its way to the international press.

Then you find it at the New York Times.

Again, as a journalist, I didn't check the sources of that story on the New York Times.

So maybe they did, you know, corroborate this.

They saw people, people, they saw pictures of medical staff.

But you know what?

There is something in this type of conversation that is minimizing what's really happening in Gaza.

And I don't want to minimize this.

I think there is a terrible humanitarian crisis.

Why did the Israeli press start reporting about hunger in Gaza?

Because the sources of...

Israeli reporters reporting on Palestinian issues, speaking Arabic.

These are the most experienced experienced people that talk with Palestinian sources in the Gaza Strip.

They started talking with their sources that are usually enemies of Hamas, speaking fluent Hebrew, and they talked with them and they started reporting on prices and they started saying, I'm hungry.

My kids are hungry too.

And I've lost weight.

And we're eating once a day.

And that means that you might have a problem of hunger.

And in certain cases, you had.

Now, flour was probably solved.

You know, I'm ending with the good news because we're seeing now sacks of flour left unattended, but the humanitarian crisis is still there.

But let me just say humanitarian crisis is there.

We can debate the severity of the food crisis.

But again, to me, it's tragic and a completely unforced error that Israel allowed this narrative to lock in.

I mean, even this weekend, Nick Kristoff in the New York Times has a piece about Gaza.

He talks about the killing of an estimated 18,000 children and the starvation.

I'm quoting here, the starvation of a population.

The starvation of a population.

This is this weekend.

Even as you say things are getting better, he hyperlinks.

So I clicked on the hyperlink.

And what does it take you to?

The July 24th New York Times article that says Gazans are dying, which has now been discredited.

So we may say things are getting better.

We may say things were never as bad as they were reported.

But unfortunately, this line about Israel and a forced starvation on Palestinians is sticking.

And this is a huge, huge problem.

But the problem wasn't only PR.

The problem is that if you're saying I'm not going to allow food to go into Gaza, you know, naturally.

After Israel sent in six months' worth of food.

Again, we can debate the management of it, but yes.

Okay, so I'm now turning to Dan Sener, who's an expert in messaging, and I'm serious now, okay?

The Israeli government would turn to you and would say, look, we've decided to stop all food and aid into Gaza beginning on March 2nd because Hamas doesn't agree to our terms to end the war.

This is basically what the Israeli cabinet said.

Now, you message this, Dan, in a way that it won't be starving the population.

Israel does not explain its policies, many of which I think are sensible, obviously.

But I think they do themselves enormous damage by not explaining the policy.

If they had said what we now know, which is when they put the freeze on aid in, it was just after they had flooded Gaza with six months of aid.

They should have been messaging that to the Palestinian population, that you have six months of aid.

They should have been messaging that to the international community, but they don't do very much messaging to the international community, which is a subject for another day.

But I'm not saying that the policy was right or wrong.

I do think it could have been contextualized.

And that said, Nadav,

that doesn't absolve reporters from not just relying on Hamas telegram channels.

Okay, there is six months' worth of food in Gaza.

Let's say this is the case, and they would have said that.

So, what's the reason to stop the aid?

Yeah.

What did they expect would happen?

You know, this was an announcement made by the cabinet, I think by the prime minister.

Why would you substantively do that if it is not to pressure Hamas?

And if you are pressuring Hamas through usage of food, you will be accused in starving the population.

And I'm saying this to myself as a journalist because I should have called you up then, you know, when this decision was made.

And I should have said, hey, Dan, I think that Israel just made an incredibly stupid and potentially dangerous, humanitarianly speaking, decision.

Let's discuss.

And I didn't.

And I have to tell you, you know, I keep thinking about that because I think that this is the type of terrible mistakes that are made through terrible wars of the sort that we are fighting, specifically when you're fighting this kind of enemy like Hamas.

And this is always the danger that Hamas is going to drag you down.

And to quote Gidon Tsar, the Israeli foreign minister, a week ago, to drag you down to to the black hole.

And I would say the black moral hole of the Gaza Strip.

Okay, so let's take the anti-Gidon Tsar position.

Imagine in two or three weeks from now, we're doing an episode in the Dav on a new hostage deal.

Will we say, will you say, you know, the military pressure that Israel cranked up against Hamas and Gaza City, Hamas's Berlin or Moscow, the thought of losing it and losing control of it completely terrified Hamas.

And they went back to the table and they realized despite all this pressure on Israel internationally that we've experienced over the last few weeks, which Hamas thought gave them enormous momentum to the point that they could walk away from talks on July 24th.

Suddenly they ran back to talks because they realized they overplayed their hand and Israel didn't care, was not worried about the pressure and was going to go take Gaza City regardless.

And Hamas came back to the table and got a deal.

Will we say, will you say, you know what?

This whole buildup about the operation to Gaza City served a useful purpose in bringing hamas back to the table yeah absolutely i i will say that and i'm saying this today you know i don't see myself as an expert for warfare or negotiating with hamas what i see myself as someone who speaks with these people and what i'm hearing is constantly the same thing from the people who want to get the hostages back they're saying you can't do this without having some pressure on hamas on the military level and the problem is now if they're honest is that this pressure could also lead to the deaths of hostages but if you will have no pressure they're going to drag the negotiations forever like they did with girdchali and the rest now this is what i'm hearing from the professionals there what i'm hearing from the hostage families and i want to give this some airtime is what are you talking about end the war get an agreement with hamas anyway you're negotiating a ceasefire with hamas and then fight hamas in another day and this position is not a fringe position.

That's the position of the Israeli public.

I just published a JPPI poll on my column this Friday, and we keep asking more and more extreme questions.

They are asking extreme questions in their phrasing, saying Hamas will remain in Gaza.

Nadav, so what does the poll say when you ask the question, if Israel does a final deal and ends the war, gets all the hostages back?

Again, assuming all this can happen so easily.

I'm skeptical, but let's just say it does.

Hamas agrees to end the war.

All the hostages return, and Israel has to fight Hamas another day, you know, in the future.

What does the polling show on that?

Let's just take the JPPI poll.

So it shows that there is a majority within the Israeli public.

I can pull out the numbers, the latest numbers.

Yeah, pull it up, pull it up.

I'm quoting the question from the JPPI poll, the Jewish People Policy Institute, which is a non-profit organization, non-partisan.

Yeah.

So what's the right thing to do in Gaza?

And I'm quoting, I'm translating as I go by from Hebrew.

So, you know, if you see discrepancies between this and English, it's because I'm translating from Hebrew.

To try and get an agreement on returning the hostages, even if this means that the goal of deposing Hamas from the governance of Gaza has not been achieved, 54% of the Israeli public.

To continue the war until all the goals that were set were achieved, meaning no Hamas governance in Gaza and all the hostages come back home.

37%.

Don't know 9%.

And by the way, do you support or object delivering humanitarian aid to Gaza?

The entire population?

Support 53%.

Oppose 32%.

Don't know 15%.

That's a JPPI post.

What was that last number, the majority number?

54%.

try and get an agreement on returning the hostages, even if it means that the goal of deposing Hamas from the governance in the Gaza Ship is not achieved.

54%.

Yeah.

You hear in that number, a majority.

Mathematically correct.

I hear in that almost one of every two Israelis is opposed to that.

But they were asked about the other option.

It's 37% then.

The other camp is much weaker than it's not like 50-50.

Okay, bring it down to 37%.

So say almost four in every 10 Israelis.

And that's the entire population.

I'll add another argument, and that is that if you measure how is it in the Jewish population in Israel, it's about 50-50.

Right.

So I hear all the time from my friends, you included, that the overwhelming majority of Israelis want the war to end, even if it means Hamas stays in power.

The overwhelming majority of Israelis want the war to end, even if it means having to fight Hamas again.

And I'm just saying, you're right that it's a majority, but it's not overwhelming, which means Israeli society is actually deeply divided on this question.

Mika Goodman made the point recently on our podcast that Israel is about to go into Gaza City with this very intense operation while Israeli society is so divided on this question.

And his point was, very hard for Israel to do what it's about to do when its army is exhausted.

when there's international backlash, like at volume level 11 against Israel, Israel, and Israeli society is so divided that the great wars and the major military successes in Israeli history have been when Israelis are united.

And I get that, and we can debate that.

But the corollary to that is also true.

Making a decision to end the war, a defensive war against an enemy that executed upon an existential threat against Israel.

And to leave that entity in power, Hamas, and hope that you're going to be able to fight them again, maybe, maybe not.

Sounds eerily familiar in the past when Israel said, don't worry, if Hamas is a problem, we'll go deal with them.

And do that when a huge chunk of the population is saying, we're not on board with that either, is also dangerous.

In other words, I could make the Mika argument, and it sounds like it's your argument, that you can't go do this major military operation with the country so divided.

That's a big decision to make with the country so divided.

It's also a big decision to effectively keep Hamas in power while the country's so divided on that too.

There's a huge swath of the population that is not okay with that.

I agree.

It's a very mixed opinion, and that's true.

I do think that the difference in the examples that you just gave is that the Israeli public gave the government the time together with all the supporters of Israel around the world, including the Jewish community in America, to get to some sort of a resolution of the Gaza conflict.

Because the cost of the war to Israel is until now assessed as 330 billion shekels.

And And it's a small country.

That's the reason, by the way, why modern nations lose or win wars.

And this comes together with our other elements.

For instance, the hostage element that really limits the IDF operation in Gaza.

This is something that I think people don't understand.

If I would have shown you the map of Gaza today, where the IDF is operating and where it isn't operating, it aligns where you have hostages.

And again, this is because of the orders of the government, not because the IDF is obsessed about the hostages, but because it's the government that said, you have two goals here.

So the IDF is trying somehow to win the war against Hamas while having hostages.

And the argument isn't, let's, you know, just let it go.

Hamas is going to control Gaza, they're going to rebuild.

No, presenting this as a binary, I think, is the mistake.

The argument, a sophisticated argument, that you hear right-wingers like Bennett pitching, and of course he's a position, you know, he wants to be the prime minister and everything.

What he's saying is, let's get the hostages back, let's get a deal, and we're going to fight them another day.

And this is going to be a long war, and it's going to be a long struggle to get them not really in control of the Gaza Strip.

Now,

All the agreements today, and we have had this conversation, all the understanding in the region today, Egypt, the UAE, even Qatar, is that Hamas is not going to formally control the Gaza Strip.

The argument against this is the Prime Minister is saying, I want Hamas also to disarm and to the entire Gaza Strip to be completely demilitarized.

I really don't know how you can reach that in an agreement.

The only way you can reach that is with a full occupation of the Gaza Strip, including having a soldier in every street, clearing every house, and all the rest.

So you're making a demand that even if Hamas agrees to, they're going to cheat, they're going to lie, and it's never going to be be met by an agreement.

It doesn't make much sense.

And also,

the question is, do you agree with the SAR assessment, the foreign minister's assessment, that whatever you're going to get in Gaza strategically is less important than the damages you incur right now internationally.

And what I sense from you, from what you're saying, is that you don't agree.

You think that we can still get something in Gaza that will be more important than the continued damages.

I have friends and friends of family that are being called up right now for this operation.

So the idea that soldiers are going to keep fighting and dying in Gaza to me is

unfathomable, actually.

I also think that those

who have this abstract notion, and it feels very abstract to me, of how we just end the war, how Israel just ends the war and ends the war and brings all the hostages back.

And somehow Hamas's control of Gaza ends in that process too.

And oh, by the way, Hamas is disarmed in Gaza.

And then there'll be a nuisance in the future and Israel will have a basis upon which to return and take them out.

I just don't think it's going to be that simple.

Hamas is smarter than that.

Whatever conditions for an end to the war that they agree to are obviously going to have this exact scenario in mind.

that Israel is going to try to come back to Gaza.

And I think the international community that will not want Israel to fight Hamas again in the future under any circumstances will contribute to creating conditions that make it very hard for Israel to take action against Hamas again.

So in that sense, Nadav, I'm sympathetic to the many Israelis reflected in that JPPI poll.

I'm not saying I agree with them on every issue.

You know, I'm just saying, but the general sentiment, I do understand that sense, like

this war was started.

We need to finish it to the extent that we can finish it.

And we're not going back.

We're not going to fight Hamas again.

We're not going back into Gaza again.

Meaning, not only will we not have the will for it, the world will not let us do it.

So this is it.

This is our shot.

I understand that sentiment.

And what I guess I'm more frustrated by is not whether or not I agree with that sentiment or not, because I understand there's some holes in that side's argument too.

I'm just struck by the monolithic, ubiquitous press coverage coming out of Israel.

at least in the English language press coverage coming out of Israel that presents one side of this this debate as the only side that is reflective of where the Israeli public is.

That's what frustrates me, actually.

And I don't think that reflects reality.

I agree.

It's always the case when you have an absolute majority.

And in Israel today, you have an absolute majority that prioritizes getting the hostages back home.

And we started with very vague questions.

There was a lot of criticism against pollsters that they were not asking the right questions.

Now they're asking the most extreme questions that are tilted the other way.

You know, because Bennett isn't saying, and we're going to allow Hamas to be there.

That's not the plan.

That's not what the IDF is saying.

Look, Dan, I started speaking about the IDF and the defense officials' position that you need to end with Gaza and advance to the north and to Hezbollah when, on your show, at about February 2024.

Now, since then, many, many things have happened in Gaza that were essential, like taking care of the tunnels killing ya sinwar maybe going into rafah but again you need to see this on both sides israel's founding fathers always understood you know ben-gurion said um shmum un is nothing right but he never thought that he never acted like that that was for domestic consumption Israeli politicians have dragged the Kool-Aid and they now really believe that they can go on with some sort of disconnect disconnect with what's happening abroad.

And I think that the Jewish community everywhere sees this.

And I'll give you one example that's going to shock you.

Okay.

I spoke with a local politician somewhere in Europe and he told me, and I hope, you know, it was just something he said, but I'm going to quote it.

He said, if it goes like this, and this is not a person who's against Israel,

you'll see demands soon.

In every town, big city in Europe, Europe, you know, there's a Holocaust memorial, right?

They're going to have Holocaust memorials for the Palestinians in Gaza.

It's just a matter of politics.

You have the constituency there, right?

You know, and we spoke about this trap on your show about how the Palestinians are seeing this.

And we are advancing quickly to unilateral recognition of Palestinian statehood.

I know.

So, if someone who's a right-winger like Idon Sao, who voted against the disengagement in Gaza in 2005, unlike Prime Minister Netanyahu at the time.

Nobody can doubt his allegiance to Eret Israel or Bennett, who also is more to the right than Netanyahu, are saying we're bleeding right now.

Internationally speaking, internally speaking, maybe it should be considered.

Now, after saying that,

I try to be honest about these issues.

I can see the argument saying, if we stop now,

considering the damage and the criticism against Israel, you'll never be able to renew it, even if Hamas rebuilds, because there's going to be such coverage of what Israel did in Gaza.

But that's the kind of argument, the slippery slope argument, of someone who goes into the casino and loses a thousand bucks and then says, I've already lost a thousand bucks, you know, and I lost my home.

So maybe I should, I don't take a mortgage on it and lose the rest.

You need to be rational about this.

I'll give you one example.

The government kept on saying, we're not going to sign a full-pledged deal to end the war with getting all the hostages back.

We're not going to do that because Hamas is not going to agree to our terms.

And this is the reason we have a phase deal, a Witkov kind of deal.

It's going to be like two sections of a deal, two phases, right?

Now the government is saying.

We're not willing to consider a phase deal anymore.

So what would you account for that change, by the way?

That the government is now saying they'll only go to final deal?

First of all, I don't know if I should believe it.

Secondly, the deal that was signed, that Israel decided, you know, know when it decided to resume the war and it decided to resume the war the deal that it signed was a deal to end the war to begin with it was never you know only uh an interim deal right it had two phases so i i don't understand this statement to begin with it sounds like and this is what netanyahu the netanyahu critics would say this is just an excuse to extend the war now he said i want to have a only a phase deal now he's saying i want to have a full deal but nadav i think you and i both agree based on our respective sources that the netanyahu government or Netanyahu himself wants a deal.

He wanted a deal.

He was ready to do a deal in July.

Something's happened here where he's...

I think he wants a deal.

I think I've said that on the show.

And this is, by the way, this is in opposition to many of my friends who are demonstrating right now as we are speaking in the street.

First of all, I don't think Netanyahu wants the war to last in eternity.

I don't think it serves him.

I think what serves him is to win the war to the extent that he can sell to the Israeli public that the threat isn't there anymore.

And the threat is going to be there.

But as a politician, I think getting the hostages back is his interest.

I think after the Iran war, it was a prime political interest to get a hostage deal.

What really happened is that Israel paid a very heavy price for an incredibly stupid and to some extent cruel mistake it made back in March.

And Hamas was using it.

And now the question is: will military pressure now

lead to a deal, or will it lead to more criticism of Israel that could actually lead it to lose the war?

Will it kill the hostages and lead Israel to lose the war not only internationally, but actually?

Or will it push Hamas again to the negotiating table?

And I have, and this is the good news I'm going to end with, the last 48 hours, we're seeing assessments in Israel by intelligence sources and by others that there is movement as to a deal.

And that Hamas is now softening its demands, coming back to the table.

I don't know if it's softening its demand or Israel.

By the way, Israel took back its delegation from Qatar at the time.

But I don't know who's softening right now, but it seems that the mediators and all the rest, and maybe this also has something to do with the administration.

And here's an important message.

If we want to have a deal, we need to have a constant pressure of the administration to get that deal.

Of which administration?

Of the American administration.

That's essential.

If we didn't have Steve Witkoff coming to Jerusalem and to Qatar, but pressuring at the time, Netanyahu, we wouldn't have the previous deal.

I think everybody can agree on that.

If we didn't have Witkoff pressuring Hamas, we wouldn't have that deal.

If we didn't have Bill Burns, who doesn't get enough credit, actually manufacture that deal that was pushed beyond the end line by the Trump administration, we wouldn't have a deal.

And Brett McGurk.

Brett McGurk deserves some credit.

And Brett McGurk.

And

we need that to happen.

And that's crucial now for Israel and for Israel's allies to be assisted by the United States.

But Nadav, we often talk as though Hamas doesn't have agency.

I mean, look at this conversation we had, like 95% of this conversation was as though Hamas doesn't get a vote, our conversation right now.

So what is Hamas doing, anticipating this military operation into Gaza City and preparing for it?

First of all, Hamas, according to the assessments in the IDF, has been preparing to the IDF invading Gaza City.

And while we are speaking, there is a chief of staff meeting and in the room, material has been presented as to how Hamas has been preparing itself.

Secondly, there is within Hamas a discussion and an argument between Hamas in Gaza, led now by a man called Haddad.

who's the regiment commander or the battalion commander of Gaza City that was one of the people who were preparing October 7.

The last one on the high ashen of Hamas that is still alive in the preparation of October 7th.

He's still alive.

And he's now preparing the defense of Gaza City.

And he was pushing Hamas in Qatar and other places, people like Khalil Haya and others, not to agree to a deal.

which is amazing if you think about this, because it's Hadad who's in Gaza, seeing the hunger, seeing the humanitarian crisis.

and he's not the man who's saying, yeah, we need to get an agreement.

He's the man who's saying, don't get an agreement too quickly because we're standing.

Because Hamas really doesn't care about the local population.

It's really a monstrous genocidal organization.

This is what it is.

It's absolutely the case that Hamas was making different demands.

Hamas was distancing itself from understandings that were already made in the negotiations.

And they did that because they saw

that suddenly their international campaign is working.

And that's one of the reasons that we still do not have a deal.

All right, Nadav, we are going to leave it there.

We are going to pick up later this week because you and I are doing an episode, your maiden voyage on Inside Call Me Back.

So, after every time you appear, as you referenced earlier, I get these irate listeners, and they send me these very hysterical comments about something you said.

And now's their opportunity to submit their questions.

And they can act

You will actually have to face their questions rather than just fetching to me, which is what they do.

I'm tired of being fetched at on your behalf.

So you can now submit your questions to Nadav because we are going to have a very informal, perhaps heated, perhaps not.

We'll see how it goes conversation later this week.

So if you're not already a subscriber, please go to arcmedia.org.

That's A-R-K-media.org to subscribe.

And

I guess that's it, Nadav.

I'll see you later in the week.

Okay, it was a pleasure.

Thank you so much, Dan.

Thank you.

That's our show for today.

If you value the Call Me Back podcast and you want to support our mission, please subscribe to our weekly members-only show, Inside Call Me Back.

Inside Call Me Back is where Nadav Ayal, Amit, Segel, and I respond to challenging questions from listeners and have the conversations that typically occur after the cameras stop rolling.

Inside Call Me Back will come out every week as an extension of the Thursday episode.

To subscribe, please follow the link in the show notes or you can go to arcmedia.org.

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Call Me Back is produced and edited by Elon Benatar.

Arc Media's executive producer is Adam James Levin Aretti.

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Research by Gabe Silverstein.

Our music was composed by Yuval Semo.

Until next time, I'm your host, Dan Senor.