Transcript for #366 — Urban Warfare 2.0

Sure, so I spent 25 years in the US military as an infantry soldier and officer and then spent two combat deployments to Iraq, both in the invasion and at the end. But then I went, you know, throughout my career, my last job was teaching strategy at West Point where I stood up a research center and started researching, you know, all urban battles and I became this chair of urban warfare studies that I am now. really when I left the military up again this endeavor to travel the world into combat zones to understand them a real time that has led me to where I am now where I can uniquely provide people. I hope understanding of the Israel's war against Hamas and Gaza which is overwhelmingly urban which is what I specialize in.

When I left the military in 2018 and really took full direction of my new job to study academically. I started, I went to Mumbai to study the 2008 terror tax, which was on a, you know, 10 terrorist took down a whole city. I went to Israel multiple times studying past wars. So like the 2002 battle of Janine, the battle of Suez city. When the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia started, I started going into Ukraine. So I've been four times since the war began studying the urban battles. So key, buck, mood, mario pool. And then of course I've been the Gaza twice since the beginning of the Israel Hamas war.

Sure. I mean, I also, I forgot to mention that I also went into Nagana Karabakh. There was a war there in 2020, and there's been another one, but I went in after that war to, it ended in a major urban battle over the Battle of Shusha. But going back to Mumbai, I mean, it was just fascinating in the planning that went into it. And like you said, I'm one of the, they basically hit five targets simultaneously at the exact same, your moments with small teams of terrorists dressed as civilians trying to blend in. And one of them being the Hobad, two hotels, train station. but overwhelmed the systems. And there are, you know, totally at a different scale. A lot of similarities between the invasion of Israel on October 7th and the Mumbai attacks on how it kind of overloaded the system.

not an indirect action because it was verified by an intelligence that it was a Pakistani led operations a really a state backed operation but using these proxy forces, you know, and this was a That traveled from Pakistan into India to conduct the attack. There was a lot of political things that happened to include, you know, demanding responsibility, but there were such plausible deniability. It was really frustrating with the, you know, the terrorist group who did it, but you're right, no direct action. There are lots of, you know, history there between the India and Pakistan. And the concern of just like we've seen other places, the concern of escalation in that direct attack. But this is the kind of the Iran situation in the Middle East too. There is always this plausible deniability, even if in these cases where it can be proven that the terrorists were trained, financed, and launched by a state actor.

Sure, I think it's I spent a lot of time walking the ground of October 7th from my lens right of somebody who studied urban combat from Mumbai to all wars I think that the world kind of got a miss really still has it wrong or what happened on October 7th so I I've done a lot of work on walking the ground and going to all the different sites and understanding. The scale, the intention, the magnitude, the tactics, and everything from October 7th. I think the world wants to put it in the terrorist bucket, right? To put it in the bucket with 9-11, 26-11, or the Mumbai attacks and other terrorist attacks. And while, yes, it There are some similarities, but it's more like a full-scale invasion. There are over 4,000, you know, both Hamas and Palestinian civilians across the border between Israel and Gaza, 22 breach sites along the border wall, 4,000 rockets launched in the first few hours. with the intention of moving much farther north than they did. I mean it was a, and I'm struggled with what was October 7th and as from a military lens, it is a clear as an invasion as you can get.

I mean, we all want frameworks in which to think about it. I think about it as in a warlands. It's hard in this situation. Like what was Gaza? It was at a state and was it's a launch of a state attack, right? It's not. So it falls in that these two buckets of whether internationally armed conflict or non internationally armed conflict. But I view it, like I said, as an invasion with different forces. Yeah, the first wave of forces were these Hamas, Nukpa, some even wearing uniform forces with clear instructions. I mean, they had guidebooks on how to create as much suffering. They had guidebooks on how to wear their GoPro cameras. There's just so much uniqueness. But I view, if you cross the border, I do use a combat, really. So in war, there's two categories. Non-combatant in a combatant and yes, you can get into like illegal combatant and all these things, but if somebody crossed the border from Gaza into Israel with their purpose of and partaking in the hostilities, they immediately make themselves a combatant.

Sure. I think that's a great question and it's hard to say from from the bottom from October 7th till today have that how have we known what is going on and how is that shaped our you know basically our information about the war and I agree with you. This is we used to have these terms like tiktok wars They're calling this the first open source war after Ukraine, but the evolution of being able They basically bombarded by information, not through kind of the traditional means, but through social media and other aspects. We can see into the battle continuously, but we're also looking through a so-dust role, and a lot of people are interpreting what they're seeing. Where I agree with you, we can really start from October 7th. We talked about that on how I think people have gotten that wrong. It was just a terrorist attack. It was oriented towards the military. All these different immediate disinformation campaigns that seem to be gaining traction to sticking even in Israel's response. But once, you know, on October 8th, Israel declared war against Tomas, such a really great framework at a state because they went on the news and made a formal declaration of war against Tomas in Gaza because of what happened on October 7th. That's pretty straightforward. They set forth their goals, which, again, as time has gone in different media messages or information operations, we call them social media trends or whatever, there's been so much of the truth that has been translated. You asked me, how do we know what we know? So for like October 7th, we know because Hamas uploaded all their videos a lot of time in real time. So we can pretty much, you know, people were starting to make their own opinions on October 7th based on the overwhelming information being uploaded, but it's really interesting how despite even Hamas's videos, everybody formed their own opinion on, you know, it was resistance. It was oriented towards the military. There wasn't this, you know, no rape happened. All these things, despite the overwhelming evidence we all had access to.

No, you can go to like, you can just go to October. There's actually video, I forget the name of them like October 7th.com and where people have collected, unfortunately, all the Hamas video they can find and put it on as a record of, because you know, you as the thread of X or telegram, whatever, it can get lost in the threads, but you know, people have, it's all still available. I saw the video that the Israeli government put together. I saw it back in November and it was really shocking and I wrote about how much it, it jared me despite how much I've seen of war, how my own experiences

One of the biggest surprises was just the unique, because of the fact that Hamas recorded so much of the trusses they were doing, but also the fact that there were so many sensors that we call them, you know, traffic cameras, dashboard cameras, victim cell phones. The, what Israel did, which nobody has access to and let's say seen this video, was to take all those different points of view and then put them in time and location. So like if you're at the November Music Festival, the video shows you the Hamasco Prog approaching the festival. It shows you the dash camera of somebody there trying to get away in the end of the frightened teenager who's recording it. It brings it all together, which I think really creates this very mixed reality experience of which is unique to war reporting. Like I've watched, you know, my fill of evil things happening around the world, but how this was put together, I think, was really unique. So it really charged me. I mean, other things that I saw in the video that were very unique to me was like the video of Hamas rolling through the border, really jubilant about what they were about to do. And I've led a lot of soldiers in the combat, and that's not normal. Even for your fore soldiers for anybody to be really excited, you're foric about what they were about to do. And then lastly, I found some of the videos of like the children crying out in pain. There's one scene where there's two young boys. The Hamas members had just killed the father. They had brought them back into the house and you can hear the boy's moaning, which is something I, as a soldier, have heard, you know, enemy combatants do on the battlefield, like it's like the death, the death moan I call it. And to hear that coming from a boy was really traumatic, but I've also seen, you know, innocent civilians being caught in between, you know, in war and how the soldiers will overwhelmingly stop to give aid. And to have it a little boy crying out, his eyes missing, his dad's dead. And for the Hamas, number to be standing there, like shut up, be quiet, and then go to the fridge. And that's the scene that everybody talks about where he grabs the coke out of the fridge and starts drinking it. That's really, you're very unique.

Yeah, it's an interesting, so it's not the first time I've seen it to be truthful. Now those who cross the border and engage in the activities, in any way, to include the looters who even came forward and walked over the dead children's bodies and took their clothing back into Gaza. I'm a very law of war, rule of law, a realist, basically. So have I seen similar, of course it's disgusting to see, remind me of, you know, scenes of Mogadishu 1993, the entire population celebrating the death of American soldiers, Felicia 2004, the entire It seems like the entire city coming out to dismember Americans, burn them, drag them, hang them from their bridge and celebrate. It's not, yes, I, a heart percent degree through. It's a massive problem with Islamic radicalization of populations and where you can bring yourself to be celebrating the rape of women and taking a babies as hostages. There's so many fundamental issues with that. But I also draw a clear line because I understand the history of war and this is again where I think people have gotten it wrong. I think that To think that those videos didn't lead to Israel's quest for vengeance and the way they act, that is all stemming off of what happened on October 7th. I strongly believe from being on the ground, you asked me, how do I get my information or other people? From being on the ground with the idea of that is also not how soldiers approach, even after the Battle of Felizio or other instance, which is barely similar, and the difficulty of distinguishing between, okay, who's a combatant or non-combatant, innocents of alien? It doesn't lead to nations or like the idea of in this case, where no matter what they do, people think they're intentionally trying to target people because of those videos, which is not the reality on the ground.

And I agree with you. This is really that, you know, the misinformation that's so shocking that what you have so much misunderstanding of who the Israelis are. As in the idea of the people of Israel, how there is an aspect of, of course, the law of war, I'm sure we'll talk about following the law of war in all of its intricacies in the execution of a war. But also the moral ethical code of your society, I mean, militaries are a reflection of their societies. So, like you're right, the asymmetry here is that you think that the Israel society would be okay with any of that, and clearly they're not, and they want to hold soldiers if they do go wrong and war accountable, there's so much of that that is, that's not who we are, that people don't understand that militaries take into war, they're reflection of their societies' values. So, there's so much misinformation out there that it becomes confusing to people who have never been there. They couldn't tell you what the difference between Gaza and And the West Bank is, they couldn't tell you what the size of Israel is or what. There's so much they don't know, but they form these immediate, you know, hardened and emphatic opinions about, that's just what Israel does.

Yeah, it's a great question. It's interesting how many times I've gotten that question unique to this war only. Well, what is the combatant to civilian kill ratio? It's just, I of course, having studied so many urban battles can tell you what it was in the past. I can tell you first, so the question was, how many have died? The answer is nobody knows. But for some reason unique, your war is a contest of will. We have to fight what the narrative is. So because unique to this war alone and I don't say this based on opinion and just but empirical evidence, this is the first war in history. where anybody has had a running count of the civilian casualties down to the single digit in real time. I mean, if you just imagine a fake running count. Correct. I mean, if we're taking the actual opinion of a third party in who is affiliated with the enemy, Hamas. So the Gaza Health Ministry is a Hamas because Hamas wasn't just the military force. It was the government and you couldn't be part of the institution if you're not. It's complex, but To get a number from within the environment, from the enemy, and say that's the number that the entire world runs with with no caveats. One it's physically impossible to know how many civilians have died in Gaza. It has never been done in the history of war. The greatest battle since World War II was the Battle of Mosul in 2016 and 17. And a year after the battle, the Iraqi government still did not have a number in which how many civilians had died. Now, it went all the way from 9,000 to 40,000, the mayor of the city said it was over 40,000. Because of how many people are in the rubble, how many people are unaccounted for, who left them, there's no report on where they went. You can imagine in a very dense urban environment like, how could you possibly have a number? But if I ran with the numbers that we all use, so let's say that Gaza Health Ministry, as we're talking, says 33,000 civilians have died. Actually, it's not let me caveat myself is that the Gaza Health Ministry says 33,000 Palestinians have died in Gaza since October 7th. That number, if we are truthful, and we used Hamas's numbers, or where the Gaza Health Ministry's numbers, It accounts for every death that has happened in Gaza no matter the cause. It includes all Hamas members, anybody who died of natural causes, anybody who died actually from Hamas's hands because of the 12,000 rockets at Hamas has launched out of Gaza towards Israel since October 7th, 20% of those have landed inside of Gaza and killed many Palestinian people of Gaza. But if we ran with the 33,000 which includes everybody's died, And we took Israel's number because if we're going to believe Hamas, why don't we believe Israel, who says, given our battle damage assessments, we believe we've killed 12,000 Hamas combatants. So you subtract 12,000 per 33,000, you get about a 1 enemy to 2, if not 1 to 1 of enemy to civilian ratio, which would be historically low to any urban battle. And this is a war, not a battle. So it's actually really interesting how Somebody will try to take a battle from the past, especially the last 30 years, and compare it to the war in Gaza, which includes like 10 massive urban battles, together so that they aggregate the numbers to kind of tell the messes they want. It would still be a historically low given them all the context of urban combat, where you have a civilian population, where no matter what you do, many of them still stay, you're trying to identify separate enemy from civilian or combatant to non-combatant, like the Battle of Mosul where, you know, it took nine months for 100,000 Iraqi security forces to get four to 5,000 ISIS members out of the city and they killed 10,000 civilians in the process of that nine month battle to liberate the city. So that's a one to two ratio. So, but this is, I mean, the fact that every person that I ever interviewed asked me this question is really shocking, Because it's never been the question. That's not how the law of war works, but we had this number in our head. It like, clearly, this means everything that's going on is illegal and Israel is purposely killing civilians. They could look how behind the number is. The relevant of the context of the war, like, we're not even talking about the numbers, the challenge that the idea faced in Gaza. Nobody wants to talk about that, like the 40,000 Hamas numbers, tens of thousands of other terrorist members buried in 400 miles of tunnels, intermixed between a population of 2 million who Egypt won't let into Egypt. There's so many complexities into this battle that no military has faced in the history of war, but nobody cares. I just want to know what's the civilian death toll? And there is no number.

So the only thing that I can say would be the most honest, fact-based criticism of Israel is that it has done a horrible job. on fighting the counter narrative of what they're actually doing. One of the main reasons that is, is because they did not embed foreign media and journalists. And this is the example I usually gave when I'm teaching a class. The first battle of Felicia, 2004, you know, four American citizens were killed. The US president orders the military in to get those accountable. You know, if we did it accountable, the world says that there is too much use of force to many civilians or being hurt. There are being The committee in war crimes, so six days into the battle, the US military is defeated and told the stop because of the perception they used to force. Very minor example of the totality that is the war against Hamas and Gaza, but it's a great example where they were defeated. And there were zero media embeds in the first bottle of pollution. Six months later, when they re-did the same operation, 60 media embeds. So that's the honest criticism, but I could help you kind of go through every narrative, every accusation to include the targeting of journalist, aid workers, or civilians in general, where the US government, not even me, John Spitzer, who's been there, but doesn't have access to all the classified information said there's Based on their investigation, there is zero evidence of a single event in which Israel intentionally caused harm to civilians, journalists, or even the world's central kitchen event where people don't want to accept the fact that actions do happen especially in the fog and friction of urban combat. which people just don't have a clue of what it actually takes and they get to this point where they interpret situations, right? And I think that was really important. You said that because even the way that war crimes work from the ridiculous use of the word genocide, a big factor is to intention based on the information you have at the moment you take your action not the results so everybody sees you know footage of of Gaza especially northern Gaza or seas like you said the unfortunate every one of them is a traveling civilian destiny they interpret Well, of course, that means Israel did all that on purpose and that there was no alternative, which I think could be a part of the conversation is that people who have no information on how war works, like you said, people woke up to Not the Syrian war, not to the last 30 years of wars, not to real massacres, Russia taking 20,000 babies out of Ukraine. They woke up to, and it wanted to start interpreting based on their knowledge, the wars that they see based on short clips and videos. Or they think that there's an alternative, which I actually think is, I've been arguing with literally, like, national leaders who have propositioned that there was another way And that's not the history of warfare. One example I'll give is there's a very another news story of Israel has used more 2,000 pound bombs than any other military in the last 30 years. Which is a true statement, but it is given as a negative. to paint the picture that Israel had a choice. It could have not used those bombs. It could have just not did bomb in at all. And the actual evidence shows that that has been a feeling between in many wars that if you just bomb less, there'll be less damage, less civilian casualties. It's actually the inverse, like in the 1945 Battle of Manila where there were 4,000 Americans and UK attorneys, prisoners of war being held But the Japanese and the city of Manila and the general general MacArthur said, you know air power. I don't want you destroying Manila. I don't want inappropriate civilian casualties and still the military moved forward and there are 100,000 civilian deaths because of the complexity of urban combat. You think that if there would have been just less bombing or the fact that The actual normal closure of a £2000 bomb, we haven't talked about it yet, but one of the things that difficulty for the idea is that the enemy, there's no enemy on the surface, they're underground, and they're deep underground. So yes, Israel has used more £2000 because of the only military in the history of war who's faced an enemy so deep underground under civilian structures in which a tool like that is the weapon that can get to that military target.

Sure, so two easy actually things to pick apart one is what did they face that no military has faced and what did they do that no military has done. So on what they have faced, one is just the proximity to the enemy, right? That this is not hundreds of miles away. So if you want to use a US military example, it just fails step one, just a proximity to the actual national security, the existential threat. So that's October 7th, right? But the war has been waged. In eyesight of the homes of those, the size of the combatants of 4,000 combatants, launching rockets over the head of the military. So no military in modern history has faced a combatant who is launching 12,000 rockets over their heads headed for their homes behind them. The tunnels, of course. So, you know, this, this, what Hamas had built over 15 years hasn't been seen in the war period. Yes, there's been tunnels in war before. But the fact that there are 400 miles of tunnels ranging from 15 feet to 250 feet underground where no military munitions can reach. but solely under civilian sites. So civilian homes, hospital schools, UN facilities, on purpose. So they could deploy this what they call this human shield strategy. Because, you know, non-state actors, terrorists, whoever had learned from the history of really modern wars in which you have a military who follows the law of war against a combatant who doesn't that they use the laws which in urban combat you immediately enter and you already have restrictions on the use of force right you can't that's the underlying thing is do not target civilians and only target military sites and that's really hard to do in urban areas but there's lots of rules that we can talk about on that So Hamas deployed this human shield strategy, but also a human sacrifice strategy where, and I don't know why the world just won't take for, on its head, what Hamas says, like, literally they tell you these things and the world's like, yeah, but they're the fact that they say they want as many of their civilians to die as possible. And one evidence of that is the fact that there are 400 miles of tunnels in Gaza and not one civilian is allowed in them. The entire population 2.2 million could fit in Hamas's tunnels with ease. Where you take in another example in another war like Ukraine's war where the civilians did seek refuge in the subway tunnels and underground. and the hostages. So the fact that, you know, that Hamas immediately took over 2040 hostages, which really gets to the time variable, right? So in understanding the challenge at the idea, face you have to factor in, you know, the rockets, the tunnels, the hostages, which really get to your alternatives on, which is wait, just pursue some other strategy and just leave your hostages in captivity. So all those variables, no military has faced that in modern times. None. And I could, you know, I can go back to war 2 and give you Some variables like the Battle of Manila 1945, the 1950 Battle of Seoul, which will get you close, but not all those variables. And especially not the variables in which Israel relies on the support of the United States. Now, all wars of contest of will. So Israel knowing that it course everybody agreed it had to write to self-defense and to launch the war. But to know you had to maintain the will of the international community in how you respond. That's a little different than let's say post 9-11 when the course of the United States saw a coalition, but it was going to, and it did take action. Now, on what did the idea of do, which again is unique to actually enable and preventing, we call it civilian harm mitigation. everything you do to not have civilians hurt. And the biggest thing that really the only thing that has been very effective in wars in modern history or even war, too, is if the conditions allow weight and evacuate the cities of the civilians. So this is a very, like the biggest thing you can do. So Israel waited after October 7th. One it had immobilized, but then it still waited three more weeks and sent notice, especially the northern Gaza where the greatest meat of these 40,000 Hamas members organized in 30 different battians. The greatest really population of them were in northern Gaza, so they evacuated the entire northern Gaza. And they got criticized for doing that and telling the civilians to please leave these combat areas and they evacuated 150,000 of the million population in northern Gaza and they were criticized for that. But it was the standard and how you do that through the dropping of flyers was pretty straightforward. Of course, Israel, because they have the capability and they've developed What nobody else in board does started also using phone calls, text messages, pre-recorded voice messages to help with those evacuations. Then they deployed drones with speakers, and then they deployed speakers drop out of the sky on parachutes to help evacuate with a very high level of fidelity. So that way when you enter the environment, there's less civilians caught in the middle of it. So they waited.

100%. I mean, and again, we had to believe those reports as much as we believed the other reports. Of course, the idea of told the civilians what road to use and where to go, and Hamas targeted them, or sent them messages, took their cars, preventing the civilians from leaving, and most of that comes from the civilians in the environment where the information comes.

correct. And bomb, murdered, those roads. And this is the thing where people will say the other report is that Israel targeted the exact areas in which they told the civilians to go, which is usually misinformation as a kernel of truth where Like Kamas would set up a rocket firing position next to a humanitarian zone. And then launch rockets, so Israel would respond to that. And then the world would only pick up on Israel as targeting the humanitarian areas they told civilians to go to get out of the combat area. Really, the only, you know, that's a safer area. But Hamas, again, using the human shield, has wanted that narrative. And this is also the difference to to hummus as a combat and as opposed to most other urban combatants, even ISIS, right? So ISIS in the battle of muscle used human shields, but its purpose wasn't to get as many civilians killed as possible. Nor was there a way to really hold the people into the area. So this again gets to the uniqueness to this wars, back into the civilians, can't get out into Egypt. But they were identified this place in southern Gaza that was identified, which is now the Al-Malasi humanitarian zone. It was picked because there was one of the few areas that the idea believed there were less Hamas tunnels or Hamas military in general. And initially the civilians wouldn't go there, but yes, the Hamas. And really, we can talk about what Hamas did during the temporary ceasefire that happened for the hostage exchange, which nobody comments on, is that during that ceasefire, Hamas sent hundreds of thousands of civilians into areas and repopulated them with over 300% of the civilians that were there before the war. So like in Communists, Hamas increased the population of Communists by 300%, before the idea of could start their operation in that area.

Yeah, it's a great question as you really have to look at inward the strategy of both sides. So this has been trying to have people understand that the Hamas military strategy in the war is not to defeat the idea as in military force. It is also not to hold terrain. Just in those two objectives, it's different than ISIS, who is trying to hold the terrain that it had captured to include Masul, which is the capital of their self-proclaimed caliphate. They were really trying to hold the train. The Hamas strategy in accordance with what they have done has always been about just biting time. And why they built this vast tunnel network was to be in the tunnels when IDF came. I don't think they assumed that Israel would maintain the world to continue even this far. But it was always about biting time for the world to stop the idea of like which has happened in Israel's previous wars. ISIS didn't have that strategy as their military strategy or their grand strategy. Where Hamas, again, again, according to them, their grand strategy is all this is just in the pursuit of a political objective to Israel not existing. And for there to be a Palestinian state, which includes everything that Israel is currently sitting on right now. That gets into this military aspect where you see a vast difference between ISIS and Hamas, both used terror tactics. One was a full-out government of this region received billions of dollars to improve the region, funneled most of that money into building this terror military that had the intention of just causing the idea to not be successful. And that has been where again, they say that the civilian should die to achieve that goal. and they're fine with all of them dying. In the pursuit of this, like you said, there's a fundamental misunderstanding of what Hamas and this radical interpretation of Islam, which leads them to pursue this strategy in real time. Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, this is the uniqueness I agree with you. It's it's it's shocking and concerning where our world's best academic institutions are creating the dumbest students who can't critically think or get access to their own information. This has been the you basically the survey based analysis of the protesters like do you know which river in the sea means? Do you know who hummus is what? Do you know what happened on October 7? It's it's just shocking. But I will give you have to analyze it almost empirically on how hummus has been able to tap into all these human storytelling techniques of the weak versus the powerful, their press versus their press and the idea that there is just an alternative if you just stop. You know, it just ceasefire now. Everything will be better if we just ceasefire. And this has been my position from the beginning as a student of wars that if Hamas was allowed to survive the war period. As in Hamas, not the ideal, which again, I think the world to include military analysts have just every day since October 7th tried to compare this to a counter-insurgency counterterrorism campaign. which we just are comfortable with over the last 30 years is what we know. Rather than a conventional war mindset of this is a political body with a military holding terrain with political objectives. But the fact that the world thinks that if you just stop fighting to stop the war, like you said, they woke up to what war looks like and that it's intolerable, war is hell, it is death and destruction. But one they want to fill or recognize what the idea have done to limit and restrict themselves and to prevent civilian army. But they also think that the world will be a better place if the war just stops, that if Hamas, who they are today, the Hamas that was October 7th, in my interpretation, if they survive the war, they have achieved a massive victory in the history of war. They struck Israel and As they say as Iran says, Israel and then through Israel, the United States, if they survive that, they become these giant legends. I mean, they'll make statues out of them. They'll have it. They'll be celebration days in Iran for Hamas leadership who pulled off October 7th and survived it. And that we will see a much more violent Middle East and world if they survive.

Sure. So what they have done is especially keeping in mind what the objectives were. Your return to host is the story of how mass is a military organization with the ability to harm Israel. and secure Israel's borders. So if we compared it, has Israel been successful thus far, right? I can't tell you who's going to achieve ultimate victory in the war yet. Thus far, Israel has historically cleared Dinservant train at a pace and with a despite the numbers, low collateral damage, low civilian casualty count. They of the 30 battions, 24, those being light infantry battions of Hamas, they have destroyed 20 of the 24 active battions. They have cleared 75% of Gaza as in broken apart those functioning military organizations. They have identified the weapons capability, right? Because the rockets are a big part of Hamas's military capability that they had immense to include the manufacturing capabilities with these deep buried weapons manufacturing as in rocket production plants underground that Israel has found. It has destroyed much of Hamas's terror tunnel networks. It has returned half the hostages home through military pressure which led to negotiations. And it has now created a situation in which there is only four battions, the Hamas leadership and the remaining at the time we're talking, you know, 133 Israeli hostages left to fulfill the objectives of Israel. So that's what they've done so far. Now, the question of destroy Hamas that gets everybody going, right?

Right. And this is really just a bare question on that we're in a world in which nobody trusted anybody, right? So they're not going to trust anything Israel says the United States says United Kingdom says, but they'll trust some asses, which is unique. But let's say I trust everybody's numbers. That's where I get to and everybody's statements to include home asses. I'm taking all the information available and making these statements based on what we know. Like the 33,000.

Yeah, that's a great question. No, it's a combination of both Hamas leadership both the political wing and Qatar and the military wing in Gaza and the IDF and U.S. and other intelligence agencies estimates based on a collection, right? What we call all source analysis, a collection of both what Hamas says, what the IDF says, what we can gain and we have to achieve some type of okay we will agree that this is the number.

So it's 20 of the 24 basically infantry kind of terrain holding battalions. Before the war, there was an estimate of 30 battalions, which includes like the people who shoot the rockets, the headquarters, everything. So, of the Hamas military, 20 battines of their 24 battines at the head on October 7th, happened destroyed. And by destroyed, it means broken apart so no longer functioning as a military unit of able to do their assigned mission, whether it's defend or attacked.

Yeah, it's really hard to get a true estimate. Like nobody's given the number of sheer number, you know, miles of tunnels that have been discovered and destroyed. But given the way urban terrain is cleared, the reporting of over a thousand shafts identified, the number of tunnels in which the idea had controlled destroyed as in using explosives to destroy. I mean, I was in one in December along the border of Israel and Gaza, those two and a half miles long, it was an invasion tunnel. If you were just to take up the number of ones that they have publicly announced and shown the world, it's still many, many miles. But it is a great question, and I've gotten this question as somebody who studies underground warfare, too. It's like, when is will they ever be able to destroy all the tunnels? Absolutely not. And if you get to the realization of, like, how is it possible to have hundreds of miles of tunnels underneath a space that is only, you know, Gaza Strip is 25 miles long at the widest part, seven miles wide. If that is the really the uniqueness to what Hamas has been digging over 15 years, so many different levels of tunnels. And the idea of how to have shown the world, much of that, and shown how they both identified, like, here's a two mile, here's a three mile tunnel, here, here we are destroying it. It's really hard to get that estimate, but in the clearing of, this is why you couldn't have done it, which is bombing, right? You could not have bombed your way to this. Nor could you, it's going to be hard to do it quickly and identify every tunnel, and you have to prioritize what is a certain level of a tunnel, and you won't ever be able to destroy them all, because you're not going to find them all, but you get to a certain level of fidelity. and what they have discovered is more than anybody thought that was ever there.

Yeah, all above. So absolutely like it started like use we were talking about you know with identifying known key bunkers and underground spaces and and hitting those with with aerial munitions moving forward and as the idea of move forward like a northern Gaza if they found a tunnel shaft they would stop bring up the special two Israel. The unique forces trained only for underground warfare. You know, they have underground dogs or dogs made for tunnel warfare and they actually lost over 30 of a very large military working dog. Because once you had find a tunnel, then you bring up the special units. There were firefighters that happened in tunnels that they're very few though. Because once the tunnel has been found, Hamas has Booby trapped it and moved on to another tunnel. And there was a unique dish to the will approach in northern Gaza versus by time I visited in December or knowing in February and communist, there was a different approach. At one point the idea for flooding the tunnels with both sea water and freshwater to flush the in the Hamas out and to clear the explosives, everything has been tried. And by time I get to Kahn Unis, really, which is, this is a Hamas space, and Hamas is using the tunnels. By time I visit the idea, and you're just a month and a half ago, they were entering the tunnels before Hamas knew they were in the tunnels and using basically taking control of the tunnels and maneuvering on Hamas at the same time they were moving above ground. But this is the challenge of underground warfare. You have to develop new types of equipment. Yes, they used the robots, the drones that can work on the ground. Yes, they destroyed. And really, there's only a few ways you can truly destroy your tunnel, like the flooding that did not work to destroy a tunnel because the tunnels are made of concrete and they have Some of them have drainage in them. It's just not a solid tube. So the water's not going to stay in there. Where explosive force is really the only tried and true way to destroy a tunnel. And you have to string a tunnel, you know, string mines together along the full width of a tunnel, which if you imagine it's two miles long, it takes a lot of explosives.

Right. No, it's a great topic from really the highest strategic level down to that tactical level where you're not going to especially destroy a tunnel without first investigating what's in the tunnel. So most of the destruction outside of the aerial bombardments which are intelligence driven like they know what they're targeting on military target underground. and have some form of human intelligence signals and intelligence, some other aspect to know whether or not a hostage is present with the enemy combatant that they're striking. But once you get close and you're sending those drones to dogs, everything in the tunnel, the destroying that I was talking about is really after you've exploited what's in the tunnel. Because of that immense risk that I agree with you complicates every aspect of the war, is the fact that you know your enemies underground, but there is also the possibility of your citizens. You're the hostages in there, which leads to all the even the highest level, which I argued in a Wall Street Journal article, that the idea that there's an alternative to the Israel has done it, which does, like you said, would you just to wait a few years, use intelligence to find the hostages and do raids? which is really a fallacy. It's never happened when you have an enemy environment like that because a raid relies on lots of intelligence and immense surprise. And some type of like a permissive because you've surprised whether it was the Osama bin Laden raid into Pakistan. Pakistan didn't know where you're coming for him. They didn't. They said they didn't know he was there. But to imagine that you are going to build enough intelligence to one day just to do a bunch of raids into Gaza, a hostile environment by definition, who knows you're coming, and that you could eventually achieve your goal of bringing the hostage home a different way is not true. It's just never, it's not historically backed up. But that has led to this idea of, like you said, just going to take you a lot of time, just leave them in captivity. Let Hamas survive for now, and we'll figure out a different way. It's just not backed up by history.

Yeah, but I think this, again, I definitely 100% of that factors into what could be done about the situation. But in war, I'm in such a proponent for the law of words. People just don't understand because it's meant to put bounds on the brutality of war And that there is such thing as an innocent civilian or non-combatant, but people don't understand what it takes for that person to partake in the hostilities and make themselves a combatant. You don't have to be carrying a weapon. You could be reporting on the enemy that's coming. You could be doing Building things, there's so many other aspects of being a combatant versus a non-combatant, where yes, in this world of Hamas, where they wear civilians, use human shields, use the hospitals, use everything they can to make Israel look bad. It is the greatest challenge for any soldier, let alone in Israeli soldier to operate within these all these different challenges.

Right, really, especially with somebody who's never seen, you know, doesn't have any comprehension of the way the law of war works, war works in general, and I watched Joe interpret that video. And he, and he, and just by the words he was saying, I knew that he didn't have a framework in which to understand what the world was watching in that 22nd clip. He said unarmed kids. He said kids, which is getting to this definition of what is a kid or an adult, where that line is drawn. In that combat situation, which everybody would acknowledge, it's a combat zone. That 30-second clip doesn't give me any ability to understand what was going on other than there is somebody who is struck with a bomb. No idea what that person was doing before that video started? Did they come out of a tunnel? Did they do something before it? And then they were, did the idea of already know who those individuals were? Again, you can be a member of hummus. Like a designated member. And that makes you a combat. It has nothing to do with if you're carrying a weapon at the moment. or if you're shooting at the idea at the moment, you're a member of the, the enemy force. There's so much of that video that is unknown, especially like what were they doing before, where did they come from, what were they, who were they, what were their intentions that clearly, yes, the idea of meant to hit them. So they have to, let's say, if you did an investigation, say, this again, where people look at the, the end results, but the idea of under question would have to show, like, okay, how did you know that was a military target? Because clearly, they used precision guide ammunition to strike just those four individuals, which, again, gets to the kind of the false negative that you would have to prove. And of course, they're targeting civilians, right? That's what they do. Like no, you have to see what the war, the law of war, the war crime, accusation requires you to know what they were doing. We want to interpret, we see the explosion, like clearly they were targeting those unarmed civilian kids. Like there's so much wrong with that. We don't know.

or who they were. Like, literally the fact that Joe says, look, clearly they're not carrying any weapons. Like, okay, that's a data point, but that doesn't mean that you're not an enemy in this combat area. I mean, the power of facial recognition and all these other aspects, you have to know what the idea of new at the time they took that strike, and clearly they targeted those individuals. That's the fact because they did it very precisely.

in the world kitchen.

Yeah, it's a great question and it really gets to this, I guess, this misinterpretation of what does it mean to destroy Hamas where people say it's not possible, right? Because they mix the, you know, destroy the idea of Hamas versus the destroy what Hamas was on October 6th and its military capabilities and all of its resources that it created and immersed and smuggled in and it was sent in everything like that. One thing is that what the best case scenario is, and I don't agree, although it is the most likely scenario, that it requires a full ground invasion into Southern Gaza, right? Rapa City, Rapa refugee camp, the other areas, because Hamas could surrender tomorrow. Hamas could surrender to include disarm agreement to disarm themselves and surrender anybody who's part took on a coper seventh and committed those heinous crimes they could give all the hostage back and that would lead to a much lower intensity operation that would still amyep and be required Because in order to destroy Hamas, what it was in October 7, you have to search for its military capability. It's remaining rocket supply, it's remaining smuggling tunnels, it's remaining weapons and manufacturing capability. You'd still have to search Southern Gaza, in my opinion, to achieve the goal of destroying Hamas as both the ruling power because you don't fight an insurgency against the ruling power. You fight an insurgency for the people or a government against an insurgency. But you have to remove Hamas from power. You have to remove their military capabilities. So best case scenario is that The remaining four battalions are destroyed as functioning units able to do their mission. The Hamas military leadership remaining in Gaza is killed or captured. All the hostages are returned home. Then, like you said, is absolutely the next phase that will determine whether the world views it as your success or not because the challenge of Gaza is the that next phase that the post conflict phase of rebuilding re-establishing a different framework right this is gets the idea which I know will be a big challenge because it hasn't been there yet is a viable partner who actually has the pursuit of a better life for the people of Gaza as their number one priority and not the destruction of Israel as their number one priority. This has been the history of the Israel-Palestine conflict, right? Is this having a viable partner who will acknowledge Israel should exist to disavow terrorism and pursue a path to include by action of really caring for the people. So once Hamas is destroyed, which in my opinion has to be done, then Israel has to help in creating the next governance, the power structures, the security framework, but also And I think they will ensure that whatever comes next in self-determination isn't able to gain that much military capability for the sole purpose of doing October 7th or launching rockets as their primary goal.

Right, which this has been the, you know, the great lies, the ideal that Israel has been the only hurdle to a state solution with Palestinians and Israelis living side by side in harmony. The great lies at the greatest greatest hurdle to that was Israel versus organizations, whether it's the PA, Palestinian Authority, Hamas, whatever it is, whose soul, you know, ideal. It's construction. Everything it does is actually to attack if you're rather than pursue a better life. Within the, it's almost like the diplomatic laziness. Just two state solution has been, especially the US administrations goal, right? But they can't, nobody can articulate what that actually is. in reality, in real terms, and it has been, which is now leading them the uninformed of the world on, that's the solution to the violence, two state solution, which October 7th can't become Hamas's Independence Day, right? It can't become Palestinian Independence Day, they did October 7th, and then they should get all the things in return just to make the violence stop. That would just lead to a much more violent world as well, but it's It's really like diplomatic laziness to think that that's the solution, like without any recognizing the decades of administration to have pursued that objective and failed.

Right, and this is, I mean, to get back to the now, what is, what comes after Hamas? I don't know, and I don't think Israel knows, but it knows, like I can talk in certainties versus the uncertainty that Hamas has to be destroyed for the peace of the Middle East and the peace of Israel and the Palestinian people, like that's step one. what comes day after the day after really matters and how the world be viewed. So Israel has a lot of decisions, but so do the people of Gaza.

Yeah, that was a great question. So I don't envision that at all because not because of my own thought because Israel says they don't want that. That was tried. And then they left in 2005, and Hamas was elected in 2008, and said, that's not what we want. Despite the accusations of occupation since then, the blockade and apartheid, and all these misinformed opinions. But the other proposition you provided with an air of nation, all these other actors, is also not present, right? This is the Egypt once nothing to do with the people of Gaza. They're a part of this. If there was a multi-national Arab nation coalition who could assist, and a question will be rebuilding, but for Israel not to have a part of that as in for another terrorist regime to, because the United States wanted there to be an election in Gaza, and Hamas was elected both in Gaza and the West Bank, and it's just what the Palestinian Authority just said, we don't do that as legitimate election. That whatever comes next, you, I can't, Israel says they don't want occupation, but they will, of course, be a part of ensuring that another Hamas which they're having to do in real time, and they do own that, right? They own some of that to prevent another hummus, not just to destroy and leave it in chaos, absolutely agree with that, and that's the history of such operations as well. And I agree with you that, in order for this to work, there has to be multiple other nations involved on identifying who is the other viable partner in Gaza, how to rebuild all the structures, not just the buildings, so that they're on a path to a better life than what Hamas was giving them.

Yeah, that's a great question I wish more people would ask it and recognize and and tell the facts about how has a blood and in my last trip back in February I went up to Northern Israel to the blue line. I walked the line of where his blood is attacking since October 8th they entered the war. A second front was there and has blood has been attacking since October 8th with not just rockers but taking out all the security posts and cameras and sending people across the blue line and violating the UN Security Council. I don't, you know, they say, again, if you want to listen to them say the reason they did that was because of the war in Gaza, which is interesting, since they started on October 8th, and Israel hadn't even declared in conducted operations in Gaza yet. But with the situation, I can say with certain to can't continue, there's 80,000 people just in northern Israel who haven't been home in the last six months or 11 in hotels when I go there, they're in the hotels that I stay at. because of the daily threat of Hezbollah and Hezbollah's a much larger problem. And Israel and other nations have been pursuing a political solution because it all doesn't have to turn into war for Hezbollah to back up to the UN Security Council agreed framework and stop attacking Israel. But if they're not willing, I don't see how Israel doesn't have to also use force to secure its northern border and allow its citizens, which 80,000, like the number almost surpasses people's ability to imagine what that looks like on the ground with all these cities evacuated. 80,000 who can't go home because he has blood tax every day.

Right. Yeah, it's a great question. Of course, it's less density. There are still urban areas in southern Lebanon that would require there's restraint on the use of force, but there is a lot more military real. Because as blood didn't develop the same strategy as Hamas, of course it went underground and it's actually called the land of tunnels in southern Lebanon, of course, that's what militaries do to protect their systems, and there's hundreds of miles in southern Lebanon. But unlike Hamas, has what didn't build them solely underneath civilians to get civilians killed? Yes, it would be a much different situation, although the scale is 10 times, right? Well, hundreds of thousands of Hezbollah fighters with yo estimates of tens of, if not hundreds of thousands of rockets, but They are also much more targetable from the military stance without the civilian harm, because they're, but they're in mountainous terrain. They're more protected. It would still be a very big challenge for the idea to defeat Hezbollah. But you get to this question, which, again, people won't recognize that October 7th was an existential threat to Israel, not just to Southern Israel. They wanted to get to Jerusalem. Hezboa poses an existential threat to Israel. So it has to respond hopefully not with military force, but if that if you have to then you have to and it would take an immense war to defeat Hezboa. Let alone just push them back to their no longer threatening Israel.

Yeah, I mean, I do and I can I think I can do it shortly that of course Iran is the head of all these snakes. First, we have to acknowledge that Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis are all Iranian-backed organizations who are trained, funded, financed, and directed by Iran themselves. So Hezbollah says it like it could we at least believe these groups when they say that they act in accordance with Iran's direction. Iran is the big disruptor of the Middle East. We have some people believe October 7th. came about because Israel was close to a bilateral relationship with Saudi Arabia like it has with Jordan, Egypt and other Arab nations and that was too much about threat to Iran. It has its ideals of the Middle East and has pursued this proxy war using its proxy to attack Israel. That's absolutely, and what it did on April 14th when attacked Israel at 300 drones, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles. People just kind of, it was a part of the news, but it wasn't like, that's huge. That's historic. Like, that Israel as a nation was attacked by Iran directly, not through its multi-year decades-long use of proxies to attack Israel, but it directly attacked and it's kind of like it was in the news. Everybody wants to de-escalate, so it kind of was just keep moving forward. The world has to deal with Iran, not Israel. The United States has to change its position with Iran.

100%. I think it's a great assessment that what we've seen in the last six months has been a failure of deterrence. It was a failure of Israel to deter Hamas. It was a failure to deter Iran. It's a failure of U.S. foreign policy to deter Iran from pursuing a nuclear weapons to using its proxy forces to attack countries in the Middle East. 100%, but I do understand because I understand the significance of state on state warfare where I can't the US just strike you on. Well, there are reasons why because that would open a whole Pandora's box of second and third order consequences, but this is what you have the loonice of Iran attacking Israel and everybody's like, yeah, you know, just let it go, just let it go.

The fact that even the United States, like we had no warning, there was no telegraphing. Yes, because it's really hard to move stuff around in Iran without somebody seeing it, you know, from satellites and everything, but there was nothing that was telegraphed and by the intentions of what was shot at Israel. And yeah, so everybody uses the 99% of it all shot down. Thanks to Israel's defensive capabilities and the fact that United States helped and Jordan helped and Saudi Arabia helped and like What word are we living in? Where no, that was a legitimate attack with full intention to really cause a massive amount of damage and civilian casualties in Israel. I mean, 300 drones isn't a, oh, I know you'll shoot all this down ballistic and cruise missiles. I know you'll get all these. You know, we all know I'm just trying to save face. No. No, the fact is that they actually had, and that was a technique that has been used in like Ukraine, send away the drones to overload their defense, then send in cruise and ballistic missiles. Just because it was all knocked down, it wasn't mean that we're in tension and actions really matter, but we're living in a world where in the the result matters. That's not the way it works.

Well, thanks Sam, and thanks for having me a great conversation.