Ending the Gaza War - with Nadav Eyal
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You are listening to an Art Media Podcast. Israelis are still resolute that Hamas can't control the Gaza Strip, but they want the hostages back. And they're starting to understand it's going to be a long historic viewpoint into the future to make that goal that Hamas isn't a power in the Gaza Strip.

This has crossed the Rubicon in the Israeli psyche that this war is no longer something that is at the best interest. If you can end it, get the hostages back and make sure that there is at least on the record a different government in the Gaza Strip. It's 7.30 a.m. on Sunday, June 29th in New York City. It is 2.30 p.m. on Sunday, June 29th in Israel.

as Israelis begin a new week, counting 631 days since the war began and while 50 hostages still remain in the underground tunnels of Gaza. After a stunning 12-day military campaign in Iran, potentially lifting the greatest existential threat that has been looming over Israel for decades, the focus in Israel is shifting back to Gaza.

Earlier this week, seven Israeli soldiers were killed when an armored vehicle was hit by an explosive device. A few days later, the daily national newspaper Haaretz published a troubling article citing soldiers describing being ordered to deliberately shoot at unarmed Gazans waiting for humanitarian aid.

The IDF acknowledged that it was probing the allegations that troops are using deadly fire on Gazans, but denied that they were being ordered by their commanders to do so. The prime minister and the defense minister issued a statement refuting this report entirely, calling it, quote, a blood libel. The war in Gaza is just over three months away from approaching its two-year anniversary.

as IDF soldiers continue to be killed on a weekly basis. And we still have no sense for what the future holds for the Israeli hostages still in Gaza. So Israelis are increasingly asking, perhaps in stark contrast to the sentiment towards the achievements in the Iran war, where are things headed in the war in Gaza?

Another reason this question is top of mind is that President Trump seems to be pushing hard for a ceasefire in Gaza. On Saturday, he told reporters in the Oval Office that he believes a ceasefire will be reached within the next week. At the same press conference, he referenced the, quote, terrible situation that's going on in Gaza and spoke about the recent decision by the U.S. to give $30 million to the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.

Joining us to unpack these critical and challenging questions is Call Me Back regular Nadav Ayel, who's also a political analyst at Yedirot Akhronot. Nadav, thanks for being here. Thanks for having me, Dan. Nadav, I want to get into what's been going on in Gaza and where things are heading. But before we do, I just want to spend a moment on the West Bank.

There was a report about an event in the West Bank, and it's been dominating the news in Israel over the last 36 hours, in which, according to the report, several dozen Israeli settlers in the West Bank attacked IDF reserve soldiers.

So I'm trying to understand from the U.S. what actually is going on here. It's a little confusing. Can you just tell us a little bit about it before we move on to the other questions? This story dominated the news during the weekend in Israel. It actually began 24 hours before that in an area called Kafar Malik near Ramallah. It's the center of the West Bank of Judea and Samaria.

Dozens of settlers arrived. It's actually, I'm saying settlers, but I should say that the settlement movement is saying that these people don't usually reside in Judea and Samaria. So they're coming from within the Green Line in sovereign Israel. But dozens of far-right activists arrived to this Palestinian village.

They were burning buildings and cars. They were confronting the residents there. At least 10 Palestinians got hurt because of stones thrown by the Israelis. A military force came there, an IDF force came there, and the IDF force had seen shots fired at them from within the Palestinian village as part of this entire mess.

And the force opened fire and three Palestinians were killed in a confrontation that began actually with these far-right activists that were storming the village. And what usually IDF sources, security sources are simply describing as a pogrom. This was an expression used at the time by the head of the Shin Bet and by others. Then, 2014.

24 hours later, in the same area, IDF forces identified dozens of far-right settlers driving in vehicles in an area described as a closed military zone.

And the reason it's a closed military zone is because there was an illegal outpost that was built there by the settlers. This illegal outpost was built on private Palestinian land. The IDF tried to stop these Israeli Jewish activists through stones towards the IDF force.

They assaulted both physically the soldiers and the regiment commander who said they tried to choke him. They destroyed some vehicles and they tried allegedly to actually hit some soldiers with their cars.

This was a huge story. The chief of staff of the AGFA, Azamir Kane, there, you know, in less than six hours to show his support for that regiment commander who said he was physically assaulted by the far-right activists, settlers,

whoever was exactly there. There were a few people arrested. The prime minister issued a condemnation to what happened. Condemning these activists. Condemning the far right activists or settlers. The chief of staff said, and I quote, I'm trying to translate as I go along, there's a wonderful settlement movement here that's law abiding, but these activities bring

by groups of extremists, first of all, hurt the local Israeli population, but also hurts the security in the sector. And it diverts the security forces from their main mission.

This violence and this extremist actions, if they will not be treated in a systematic way, can end with a catastrophe. This is Eyal Zamir, the chief of staff of the IDF, speaking a few hours later while being there and showing his support for that regiment commander who's really tasked with supplying security in the region, mainly for the Israeli settlers living there, and was attacked by

by those far-right activists. Now, condemnations from the prime minister to these actions against the IDF soldiers, from the defense minister, from the chief of staff, naturally, but a condemnation from B'Talil Smotrich, to whom? To the IDF. Smotrich was accusing the IDF that they shot live ammo or suggesting the idea that they shot live ammo against the Israelis.

There was a separate incident in that sector in which the IDF got stones thrown at their vehicles. They shot in the air as a response. And one of these who's a teenager actually got shot in the same region. They're saying, we don't know that it's us. We didn't know who's throwing stones at us.

Now, I'm telling you this story, and I guess that many of the people now listening are saying, what's this mess? What's this all about? And the answer is, welcome to some parts of the West Bank. This is happening all the time. First of all, these kind of raids against Palestinian villages that two or three years ago would be unheard of are now happening almost every two weeks, every week.

We're hearing about something like that. And the Israeli Shin Bek, the security service that's responsible, among other things, for far right activists, one of the reasons that it is in a direct confrontation with its coalition.

But also the IDF are extremely worried and they're blaming in off-the-record conversations the government, they're blaming the police that's controlled by Benvir in not doing what they're supposed to do. They're saying that they're getting some sort of a tacit support from the establishment.

One example to that is that there's a notion in Israeli law called administrative arrests. You know, it's not a very democratic notion, but basically it says that if someone...

is a security threat, the government can arrest them without indicting them for a specific period of time if there are imminent security risks. And Palestinians are arrested through administrative arrests. Now, in Israel, human rights activists, by the way, from left and right, don't like this tool at all, and everybody can understand why. It's very much an emergency tool that you use.

Now, the Shin Bet, Israeli security service, was up in arms against this. Their professional opinion was that you need to use it because the far-right activists across the West Bank or operating in the West Bank are very sophisticated. It takes a real toll on the Shin Bet to actually find enough evidence to indict. And sometimes they just want to get that person out of the West Bank. And the defense minister said, you know, I'm vetoing it. I'm not going to—this is not going to happen anymore.

This is one example to sources in the defense apparatus saying this is the way in which Katz is actually giving them some sort of a tacit support. Of course, Katz's advisors and people are completely saying that there is absolutely no connection and that the Shin Bet only asked...

one administrative arrest since basically he came into office and he refused that, but that's it. So they're saying it's a known story. But this is just an example then. What's happening in the West Bank, very much related to how the war in Gaza is, we're focused on Iran, we're focused on other issues. It became in many areas, I don't want to say a no man's land, but it became a place in which you have armed groups, like far right groups,

roaming there with their cars. They're trying to have a new outpost. The IDF is trying to stop them. The IDF is not doing a good job at that because the IDF is not a police and it's not the Shin Bet. It's not the security service. So they can arrest them immediately. And by the way, they're Israeli citizens. They're not supposed to be arrested by the IDF. They're supposed to be arrested by the Israeli police immediately.

in these areas in the West Bank. So they pick up the phone, they call the local police station and that local police station, say in the IDF, doesn't really want to cooperate with the IDF because the police is very much now, you know, I don't want to say a Ben-Gvir kingdom because it isn't, right? We see there, for instance, the investigations against the prime minister, but there are areas in the police in which some officials won't want to

to get infused with the conflict of arresting Israeli settlers. So this mess is just one of the things that Israel has been sort of sidelining during the war in Gaza and the war with Iran, but really blew up during this weekend. And we're not going to hear anything about it until, and this is Eyal Zamir saying, not me saying, a catastrophe happens.

And what does he mean by a catastrophe? I think he means the possibility that IDF soldiers, for instance, will shoot, you know, not knowing who they're shooting at because they're being attacked. Or you might have a terror attack against Palestinians. And we have seen terror attacks against Palestinians that would be devastating. And that's something that the IDF is extremely worried about.

Okay, so speaking of another area where the IDF has been focused, as you said, I want to talk about Gaza, while this, you know, potential powder keg here in the West Bank continues to bear monitoring clearly. And so there's a lot happening. It seems like all of a sudden, there's a lot happening in Gaza, or maybe there was a lot happening, we just weren't paying attention, because we're all focused on Iran.

So I want to just set the table, Madav, by going back to, you know, three to four months ago since the last ceasefire ended. If you could describe for us what the IDF has actually accomplished in Gaza over the last three or four months. What's been happening there? So the IDF is in the process of an operation called the Chariots of Gideon, which is an operation who was supposed to push Hamas into a deal, basically, or occupy the Gaza Strip. It has several phases, basically.

And right now, the IDF has occupied basically about 75%. There was an argument made by this government that previously the IDF, led by the previous officers, by the previous chief of staff, didn't hold to the territory that it took in the Gaza Strip. Therefore, we needed to occupy it again and again.

That argument as of itself, I have to say, is just, militarily speaking, is downright false. But here's the point. They changed their tactics. They wanted to take a hold of land, hold to that land, clear that land as far as they are concerned.

And they thought this would push Hamas into a deal. And if not, there would be a second and third phase in which actually the IDF occupies the center of the city of Gaza. Just to be clear, there are a million people living there then, a million people in Gaza City. And there are the camps in the central parts of Gaza, places like Dir al-Balaf and others.

And in these camps and in the city of Gaza, you see really the resistance of Hamas there. Now, Israel could not operate in some areas in Gaza freely because it feared and still fears jeopardizing the lives of the hostages.

So the first parts were just pushing through places like Hanunas, Rafah, other sections, and allowing the local population in Gaza to move south. So Israel didn't cut Gaza, and we spoke about this many times on this podcast, it didn't cut Gaza east-west.

It didn't create a serene corridor again that prevents Palestinians moving from the north to the south. It was trying to push the Palestinian population from north to the south because it wanted to operate, for instance, in Gaza City. Even in the idea of today, they would admit it didn't work. How do we know that? We're a few months later and Hamas wasn't pushed to a deal as a result of this operation.

Another thing that Israel did was to support the food distribution centers by the Gaza humanitarian effort, the GHF, which is a big deal. And we spoke about this on the podcast too. These are the two elements that were driving the Israeli policy in Gaza. One was military pressure against Hamas.

saying we're willing to occupy the entire Gaza Strip if needed, trying to push them to another deal. And the second one was taking away Hamas leverage on the local population through supporting the food distribution center. Now, was it successful? If you speak with Shin Bet officials, with army officials, and I've done that even in the last 24 hours, they will tell you, look, the IDF is killing sometimes between 15 to 40 Hamas operatives a

a day with targeted strikes. I don't mean they don't maneuver in the vicinity of a neighborhood, identify someone, a figure with a gun or a rifle, then hit them. No, I mean they have intelligence coming from the Israeli intelligence branch in the army or from the Shin Bet of a specific location, a specific person. They know his ID. It goes through a process, then they decide to strike.

So they're saying, basically, we're killing a lot of terrorists as far as we are concerned. And we are pushing and we have reached a point in which we control almost 75% of the territory.

On the other hand, what happens, and Dan, you know this well, this idea of taking a hold of a territory and staying there is exactly the idea that leads to the birth of guerrilla warfare because you're not on the move, right? It's not that you're moving quickly in, quickly out. You take out the terrorists. No, you're staying there with your armored vehicles. You're staying there with your camps. And the enemy learns what you're doing.

And therefore now the main weapon used by Hamas is improvised explosive weapons. This is the kind of explosives that was used in the disaster in which seven Israeli soldiers, one officer, were killed. So that Hamas terrorist, you can see that video, unfortunately, that terrible video in which he basically runs from the rubble.

He's holding this improvised explosive weapon in his hand and he throws it into the armored vehicle and he just runs away and it blows up.

And that armored vehicle burned for hours. They needed to tow it to Israel's territory just to put it down. And all the soldiers died inside. It was a terrible fire trap. And this is just one story. And this tool is used all across Gaza by Hamas. And they're not having any sort of shooting matches with the IDF anymore.

There's no skirmishes in which there's, you know, a bunch of Hamas fighters going from a tunnel shooting against an IDF force. This is not how it goes down these days. It's all about these IEDs, improvised explosive weapons, which, Dan, again, you remember from Iraq, right?

was, you know, the number one issue at a certain point. So now it's the number one issue for the IDF. Our use of IEDs that, I mean, I get that it's in high usage. Is it a new tool entirely? Like, is this something we hadn't seen in earlier parts of the war being used by Hamas? It's not a new tool, but it's the tool of choice right now for Hamas. And it's working very well because you have a lot of forces, unfortunately, in the Gaza Strip. So they have roots.

And these routes would have, for instance, trucks with, you know, food and ammunition going into the Gaza Strip. And you have these forces that are staying in a routine in specific areas. And you need to, we say in Hebrew, I'm translating, open the routes or make sure that the routes are secured from IEDs.

And Hamas is excelling at this. And by the way, what explosives are they using? And the answer is Israel has dropped so many bombs on the Gaza Strip that there is enough explosives that didn't detonate. And they're actually using IDF explosives to make these IEDs. And that explosive is extremely efficient.

So this is a big challenge. And if you ask the IDF, you know, they made great strides with their operation and it's working, but the strategic aim has not been reached.

And right now, the IDF is very close to coming to the government. And it's going to happen, I guess, in the next week or so, Dan, and saying, look, the goals that you have set to us have been achieved according to the phases. You wanted to take control. You wanted to pressure. You wanted us to secure the food distribution places. We did all that. Now, what do you want us to do? And here's what the IDF really wants to do.

They want the war to be over. Now, by saying over, I don't mean they want Hamas to control the Gaza Strip. They think that there is very little to be achieved right now unless Israel takes full military control of the Gaza Strip, something that as far as I know, the IDF is not recommending.

Or we reach an agreement in which Hamas doesn't control the Gaza Strip and the hostages return back home. And they are frustrated, some people with the chief of staff, by the lack of progress there. And everybody knows, and you see this with the Israeli public, look at the difference between what has happened with Iran, what has happened with Hezbollah,

And what has happened in the Gaza Strip? This doesn't look like a success because it isn't a success. It's not only eating away with the Israeli society, with this not so slow stream of casualties of people who are being killed, but also with international legitimacy. And the parents of the soldiers who were killed in that armored vehicle last week, they gave just heartbreaking stories.

speeches and interviews talking about their 19-year-old kids. I want to read something that Alexandra Radia, who's the mother of Staff Sergeant Nir Radia, killed in the Puma, the Puma, the armored vehicle attack. She said this on Channel 12 this week. She said about her son, and I'm quoting, he was already exhausted. He said everyone there was tired and

He used to call him and his friends "blackened." We're all blackened. From the moment he finished the 12th grade, he's been in an endless war. The host from Channel 12 asked if she had a message about the war, and she broke down in tears.

And she said this message isn't just from him. It's from his friends who are still out there on the mission. They're tired. They're burned out. This has to end. They're just kids who finished high school. They're struggling in every way. This must stop.

Now, you wouldn't hear these kind of statements on television this way, put this way, until I think the last three weeks. Something happened. Something happened specifically with this disaster. But I'll tell you what happened. You're starting to hear from the government, from Niki Zohar, who is a minister in the government. You're starting to hear from Likud officials. You're hearing from Moshe Gafni, who's an official in the coalition, an ultra-Orthodox politician.

You're hearing off-the-record briefings that the government wants the war to end in Gaza. So something is happening, and that shift, that change, you can see it in the polls, by the way, three, four months ago we discussed this, and people wouldn't believe it. So you've seen 60% of the Israeli Jewish public saying, end the war, get the hostages, even if this means, we don't care what's happening in Gaza right now. Okay, just end the war, get the hostages, end the war, get the hostages.

And there's a poll in Israel Hayom saying the bigger chunk of Likud voters are saying now the same things, right? You have the numbers. Yeah, I have that poll right here. It looks like for the first time, at least in the Israel Hayom polling, a plurality of Likud voters are saying they want an end to the war, like a rapid wind down and that a smaller percent actually want the war to continue.

And these are voters who support this government. To some extent, people are asking, and it's a very valid question, what exactly is Israel fighting for right now? Meaning, what is the actual plan? I mean, I hear this all the time, by the way, from Israelis who say, look, I can be on board with continuing the war in Gaza.

but please articulate what the plan is. Where is it going? It's funny because I keep hearing this from Americans, by the way. You're hearing this from Israelis. I'm hearing from Americans who are supportive of Israel and are saying, okay, but what exactly are the goals? Right. I actually just yesterday, an American said to me, I support the war in Gaza, support what Israel's trying to accomplish, but help me, help me explain what the actual plan is. So I want to

I want to get to this, what you talked about last week on our podcast, which is about this possible Tehran for Gaza deal between President Trump and Netanyahu. The idea being that, yes, the U.S. getting involved in Iran and conducting that extraordinary operation one week ago was in the U.S. interest to do, but it was also very important to Israel.

And that the Trump administration basically said, we really want the war in Gaza to wind down, you know, engage in this massive intervention in Iran. But we want to wrap up Gaza. And so there was something around that idea or that concept that is driving negotiations right now. I don't know if there's actual negotiations. Tell us what's going on with regard to a possible ceasefire.

So first of all, President Trump in the last 24 hours has said that he wants to have a ceasefire and get the hostages back home. And the messaging coming from Washington is really loud and clear. They want the war to end. The president has said so, you know, on the record several times. But it seems that whether or not there was a formal deal of Gaza for Tehran, you know, we greenlighted this for you. Now you do something for us.

Whether it's this or that, it's very much in the process of actually advancing. We know that White House officials have been speaking with families of hostages in the last two weeks. I've been speaking with these families. They've been very optimistic as to the chances of ending the war. And by ending the war, I don't mean only the two-phase deal that Steve Witkoff had. You know, first the release of eight hostages, then the rest.

but really ending the war in a way that really gives clarity as to who's going to control the Gaza Strip in the day after.

Here's where we are at right now. The negotiations are ongoing. Qatar is mediating in these negotiations. This is on the one hand. On the other hand, it's the same questions that we have had over a year now. And that is who's going to control the Gaza Strip in the day after? And will Hamas have leverage and power in that new Gaza Strip?

And what the Israelis tried to do during the war is to make sure that if the war stops, Hamas disarms and that it leaves the Gaza Strip, or its leadership leaves the Gaza Strip through exile. And it's very clear right now that disarming is not really going to happen for two reasons. First of all, Hamas isn't going to agree to that in the way that we think about disarmament.

And secondly, even if they will agree, Dan, no one will be able to verify. You remember trust but verify, right? So there's no way that you can verify this unless you take a hold of the entire Gaza Strip. So let's say Hamas says, yeah, you know what? We're going to disarm. We're going to give you, like the Egyptians are saying, every last Kalachnikov left. This is the Egyptian demand for this. Let's say they do that.

If Israel doesn't have the military rule in the Gaza city, in the camps of central Gaza, if it doesn't go house to house, there is no way that you could verify that they actually disarmed. So what is this about? Secondly, Netanyahu sort of added to the demands of the war the Trump plan.

which is no longer the Trump plan, was called the Gaza and Riviera, the idea of voluntary migration. Relocation, yeah. Of Palestinians.

This is dead in the water. Everybody in Washington knows that the president hasn't remarked on it for I don't know how many months now. It's not going to happen as far as Washington sources are concerned. Maybe they change their minds. You know, President Trump can be mercurial at times. So maybe he will hear about this again. But again,

Hamas is not going to sign a deal that says anything about displacement, voluntary immigration, whatever you want to call it, relocation of Palestinians. So that's also a question. There are real questions whether or not Israel controls the Philadelphia corridor to Egypt.

whether or not Israel controls the perimeter around the Gaza Strip so it has more distance between its villages in Kibbutzim and between whatever is happening in Gaza. There are real questions of how do you build that government in Gaza? Because one thing is for sure, and I said this from the beginning of the war on this podcast, Israel will not allow a Hamas rule in Gaza. Now the question is, is this a bluff?

Right. You don't have a Hamas rule, but it controls the government behind the scenes. Or is it for real? And another question is, is it worth fighting for? Is the Delta worth fighting for? Or could we actually control that without controlling the Gaza Strip? So people are saying Arab governments would go in, the UAE would go in, they will have forces on the ground.

I'm highly skeptical. Exactly. Are they going to go house to house and have...

And that's a full U-turn into, so what are we fighting for right now? If we're not going to get that disarmament and we're not going to get the Gaza relocation, voluntary migration, and there's going to be a government there, but there's no way to know for sure if Hamas is going to be there. What are we going to do? So Ronan Barr, the head of the Shin Bet, just before leaving office, made sure that his recommendation is known to Israel's government.

And that recommendation was, and that was before the war with Iran was over. Before we heard those briefings that Netanyahu wants the war in Gaza to be over, Ronan Barr told them, as long as there would be Palestinians in Gaza, you're going to have Hamas in Gaza. And because of that, the best case scenario for the Israeli interest, if it is the Israeli interest alone that you have in mind,

is to end the war, not with a two-phase deal, Dan, but with a one-phase deal, because you don't want to leave the hostages, those 10 poor hostages, tortured hostages that will be left after the first phase. You don't want to leave them to Hamas. If you're going to have any ceasefire now, get them all back right now, end the war right now. And what Ronan Bar told the ministers, told the prime minister probably, is...

If you think about Hamas as an organization, believe me, they will violate the agreement. Why? Because they are Hamas, because they are resistance. They are the mawakama. The idea of resistance, the idea of fighting against the Israeli oppressor, it's in their DNA. They can't do anything otherwise.

And when they will infringe on these agreements, we will need to attack them. It's just a fact of life. And if Israel, this is me adding, if Israel is saying, look, if the Iranians start rebuilding their nuclear program, we're going to attack again, whatever the international community is saying, why can't Israel say the same about the Gaza Strip? If Hamas starts rebuilding, we'll attack again. But anyway, that was the argument made by the former head of the Shin Bet just before leaving office.

Get them all back, one deal, end the war, get a different government there, get as many monitoring as you can on that government, and then attack again if Hamas rebuilds. This is your best case scenario. And that was before they started saying, oh, we won the war with Iran. The truth is, politically speaking, that what happened here, to an extent for me as an Israeli, is much more difficult to comprehend, to live with. That's

That is, they saw that they won in the war with Iran, and that gives them political leverage. That's the truth, Dan, because we have won the war in Iran. There were even quotes in the Israeli media saying something like, from coalition sources, we don't want to dilute our victory against Iran with continuing the war in Gaza.

So everything is so political in that sense. And that's extremely frustrating that this is seen through a political lens. But at any rate, if Prime Minister Netanyahu will have this kind of deal and will free all the hostages after the victory with Iran, probably he will go to an early elections and he stands a good chance of winning that election. And

And why? Why does he have a... I mean, if you would have told anyone months ago... Because if you get an overall deal and you get the hostages back, this is the real victory for the Israeli public. And he says, I'm going, and now my next term is going to be about Saudi normalization. Not even my next term, this term. Look, what the Trump White House is trying to tell us, I don't know what's going to happen and what's going to go down. But they're saying, you know, Syria is out there. It's possible. Saudi Arabia is possible. Lebanon, maybe Lebanon is possible.

Lebanon is going to pass a decision this week saying Hezbollah is going to disarm. Right. And this is all a path to other countries joining the Abraham Accords. There's something bigger that we discovered during this war.

We fought against several enemies. We thought that our biggest enemy is Iran. After Iran, it's Hezbollah. After Hezbollah, it's Hamas. What we really discovered then is that the Palestinian issue and Hamas, that's our biggest enemy. And how do we know that? Because Iran is vanquished. Hezbollah is beaten. And Hamas is left standing, fighting, and killing Israeli soldiers.

Iran didn't manage to kill more than one Israeli soldier during the entire war. Hamas killed only seven Israeli soldiers and an officer last week. And of course, some would say, you know, this is not a good comparison because...

an air war that Israel is fighting another country. True. It's also another way to say we are immersed within the Palestinian conflict. We are there. And because of this, this is much more of a risk. And this is the point I'm making. All of these ideas of shrinking the conflict, you remember those ideas, right? Shrinking the conflict, the Palestinian issue doesn't matter. No, no, no.

This is where we didn't manage to bring the type of victory that we brought against... Hezbollah is also on our border, right? It's not 2,000 kilometers away. It's on our border. And Israel managed to do that much more decisively. And of course, this is because of the local population. You know, we didn't enter Lebanon and occupy large chunks of Lebanon or Iran. It's because of the hostages. We're tying our own hands in some parts of Gaza.

It's because of several other reasons, but the bottom line is that here we are almost two years and we're still fighting with Hamas. We still have hostages in the Gaza Strip and all the other bigger enemies of Israel, Israel managed to cope with very successfully.

And I think that this also goes to the desire in the IDF to reach a conclusion. You want us to occupy this and have a military rule in Gaza? OK, give us the order. We'll have a military rule. We're responsible for everything. Schools, hospitals, food, whatever. OK, give us the order. They don't want that in the IDF. But if this is what the government wants, you know, we'll salute, we'll obey. We're the army. That's what we need to do.

But if you don't want to do that, that would mean, by the way, that the hostages will die because you need to take over the entire dollar strip. If you don't want to do this, okay, so let's think about what's rational and what's realistic and let's not be completely addicted to...

to fantasies sometimes of the Israeli far right within the government, like Smotrich and Ben-Gurion, that's been sabotaging these ideas of getting to a deal or trying to sabotage them for a really long time. Here's the bottom line. Israelis are still resolute that Hamas can't control the Gaza Strip.

But they want the hostages back and they're starting to understand it's going to be a long, to an extent, historic viewpoint into the future to make that goal that Hamas isn't a power in the Gaza Strip.

And you could see the sign of this with Bennett giving an interview in this weekend. Bennett is running for the prime minister. He's coming from the right wing and he's saying, let's end the war. And for him to make that statement on Channel 12 to Amit Sehgal and Ben Kaspid, by the way,

to make that statement on the record, get the hostages back and we'll deal with Hamas. This has crossed the Rubicon in the Israeli psyche that this war is no longer something that is at the best interest. If you can actually end it, if you can end it, get the hostages back and make sure that there is at least on the record a different government in the Gaza Strip.

All right, Nadav, we'll leave it there. I'm sure we'll be unpacking more with you in the days ahead on all this. I think the possibility for a deal is, or the path to it is fast accelerating. So look forward to being in touch soon. Thanks very much.

That's our show for today. If you found this episode valuable, please share it with others who might appreciate it. Time and again, we've found that our listeners are the ones driving the growth of the Call Me Back community. So thank you. And to offer comments, suggestions, sign up for updates, please visit our website, arkmedia.org. That's arkmedia.org, where you can deepen your understanding of the topics we cover.

Call Me Back is produced and edited by Ilan Benatar. Sound and video editing by Martin Huérgo and Marianne Calis-Burgos. Our director of operations is Maya Rakoff. Research by Gabe Silverstein. Our music was composed by Yuval Semo. Until next time, I'm your host, Dan Senor. ♪