Former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, Part 1 - Four Days In October
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It's 3 p.m. on Friday, February 7th here in New York City. It's 9 p.m. on Friday, February 7th in Israel.

If there's one person who has a 360 degree view of the story of this war, of this seven front war from the battlefields of Gaza, Lebanon, Iran, and Yemen, through the complex geostrategic and geopolitical map, and all the way through the domestic political landscape inside Israel, it is former Defense Minister General Yoav Galant. So he has quite a story to tell.

This 16-month long story, of which he was a central character for 13 months, with its enormous and numerous dramatic and complicated twists and turns, cannot possibly fit into your average 45-minute TV interview. So, Yoav Galant decided that a long-form podcast might be a better format to tell that story.

And so over the course of multiple episodes, General Gallant will tell us the story of this war as seen through his eyes. Each episode will focus on a different aspect or period of the war. Now, in order to give this story the space that it needs, we will resist the temptation to react to recent events as dramatic as they may be in real time.

Today, we will focus on the first four days of the war with an emphasis on one day that could have changed the course of this war. October 11th, 2023. Former Defense Minister General Yoav Galant, welcome to the Call Me Back podcast.

Thank you very much. You can call me Yoav. It will be easier and shorter. Easier. Easier for you, easier for me. So, Yoav, welcome to Call Me Back. So, Yoav, you just did an interview in Hebrew on Channel 12 in Israel. This is your first English language interview. So you're out speaking now, it seems, more freely in Hebrew and English. Yesterday was 16 months to the day of October 7th, 2023. Why now?

Why 16 months in, three months after you've left the government, why is now the time that you wanted to speak? I think that all the understanding sank in my cognition in the last three months.

And we're in the 100th day after I finished my job. And I think it has a meaning that the people in Israel and in the world will understand what happened in this war. Because we started in a very, very low point. But because of the determination and the bravery of Israeli soldiers, we succeeded to bring Israel to another point.

And I think this is also to reward the memory of those who fell in the war and to give all the understanding to their families of what was happening, how the decisions were made. And I hope that it will give a transparent picture of the situation.

Why a podcast? You, I'm just curious, you could have gone on American television and it was important to you to do a long form conversation in this kind of format. Why?

Well, I respect the media of televisions, and I was interviewed in the past before being a minister of defense many times. But I think this war is so long and so intense, and each one of the events can feed, you know, a full scenario on TV.

And it takes a long time to understand what happened because in one hand, you want to see the general picture. On the other hand, the details are very, very interesting and very important. We were fighting in seven different fronts. And in some places, there were several operations that were unbelievable, even to me, after so many years in this system.

So I think we need a medium that will be able to absorb those issues. We've spoken a couple times about having these conversations, and you've made it clear to me each time, I don't want to go on your podcast and respond to current events.

you wanted to take a different approach. So can you just explain why that was so important to you? You didn't want to come on here and have me say, what about this recent development? And what about this issue in the news? You wanted to take a different approach. Well, we are speaking about the history of Israel.

meaning this war is something that never happened before. The magnitude and the length are nothing to compare to anything that happened. And I think that I had a unique position being in the center of this war. Under me, the Israeli Defense Forces, and next to me, together, the Israeli Cabinet and Prime Minister, and around us, the world.

especially the United States, but many other friends and enemies. I don't think that there are too many things that happened in the war that I wasn't aware of. So I think that this is something that has to be told, and in a way, it's kind of a book.

You are obviously very well known in Israel, probably one of the most recognizable public figures. You're not nearly as well known here in the United States. So let's, before we get into the meat of the conversation, I just want our listeners and our viewers to get to know you a little bit and where you come from. So can you just tell me how your family wound up in Israel and what your experience growing up in Israel was? I'm a son of Holocaust survivors.

I was born 10 years after the Independence Day in 1958, also exactly 20 years after the Kristallnacht in Germany. I'm saying that because the Holocaust shaped the behavior of my family, although it wasn't discussed every day.

My mom arrived on board of the Exodus. - Really? - Yes. My father was a partisan boy who later on volunteered after the end of the war. He arrived with his family to Italy. Where were they from? Where in Europe were you? Both families are from the eastern side of Poland. My mom is from Mezrich.

and my dad from a small town by the name of Ostomazovetsk. It's the end of the Russian side towards Ukraine. Both of them escaped from the Nazis when the war started and find themselves in different paths going to the east. My mom's family arrived almost all the way to Kamchatka.

escaping first from the Nazis then from the Russians a lot of stories that connected to this issue and my dad was a partisan boy and later on so partisan just for our listeners meaning a fighter he was a partisan he was fighting Germans at the beginning as a kid 12 or 13 years old and then they put him the Russians put him in uh industrial City uh magneto goes

Well, in the very early age, he turned to be a kind of a manager because all the men were in the front. And they were able to manage in these areas. Eventually, they arrived back to Europe. And from Europe, he immigrated to Israel by himself. In the only flight, they took people from Italy.

to Israel in order to recruit volunteers for the independence war. So he arrived in the late days of '47 and find himself in the battlefield under the so-called special unit at the time, Shu'alei Shimshon, the Foxes of Samson.

And when I was young, he died when I was less than 17. But he described me that next to him were people who were killed, and they just came to Israel to look for a better future and to survive and to help the Jewish people to establish a state. This is what I got as education from home. I was born in Jaffa, in Ajami and Jabaliya, old Arabic places.

But I'll tell you an interesting story. I don't think I told it to any kind of media in the past. When my father finished the first phase of the war, his family was supposed to arrive to Israel after the declaration of independence. And he was here. So he went to see if he can find a place for them to live.

He went to Jaffa together with his commander. He was a sergeant. He went with his lieutenant. And they are walking in the streets because they were directed by the IDF at the time to find some places because this was the situation. Most of the Arabs left the area, like 100,000, 5,000 or so were still living in Jaffa.

And his lieutenant said to him, he point to him and he say, "You see this house? The second floor is yours." He just forgot to tell him that in the house, in the second floor, there were living two Arabic brothers that all their family escaped, but they stayed to preserve the shops that they have in the market. So for the first five, six years of my life,

My grandparents and their family were living in the same place, in the same apartment, together with two Muslim Arabic brothers. And they turned out to be good friends. And we were sharing the same kitchen and the same toilets. Everything was shared. They have their rooms, we have our rooms in their home. One of the brothers used to sit me on his knees

and give me a licorice sweets. One of them died after a while, and the other one asked my father to take him to Ramallah after the Six-Day War so he can unify with his family.

It represents a lot about the difficulties and the problems and the solutions that we can create in this region. Very typical story to my understanding. Growing up, who were the public figures you admired most? The successful generals of the Six-Day War were part of my life.

You know, my father was a reservist fighting against the Egyptians in '67. And every day we were marking on the map that was part of the newspaper that was published, we were marking according to the radio with my father. And one day my mom arrived into the room and she's crying. So I was thinking that something happened to my dad. I was nine years old or so.

And she said, "The IDF released the old city of Jerusalem at the Kotel." And this is the reason she was crying. So I got a very, I would say, Zionist education. But I wasn't alone. This was the general mood at the time. - When you and I were recently having lunch, in a circuitous way, we wound up in a conversation about your time as a fisherman, as a commercial fisherman in Alaska.

which I was surprised to hear. So first, how did you wind up as a fisherman in Alaska? Because I guarantee you, none of our listeners and viewers in the diaspora in the West know that. And I would bet that most Israelis don't know that you were once a fisherman in Alaska. Well, after five years in the Navy SEALs, I decided to quit and to go and do something else. I took a flight to Europe and from Europe to Alaska.

I had 500 bucks in my pocket and I landed in Anchorage, Alaska. And I spent a few days in the mission because this was the cheapest way to survive. And I told them about Jerusalem and they were anxious to know with my broken English at the time. And eventually I took a ride on board of a ship and I arrived to Kodiak, Alaska.

And walking on the docks, speaking with the fishermen, I started my role over there. And eventually, I find myself fishing for salmon and for halibut, and later on for king crab in the wintertime. And I was a lumberjack, cutting trees with chainsaws in the Foglik Island and planting trees and replanting all these issues that were connected to it.

I learned how to ski and how to climb. And eventually I used this money and I came back with less than $500. And that's the story. But you had a good run. It was a great experience. But many Israelis still today, it's common when they leave the army, they go travel or go work somewhere for a year or two. But when it was your time to do that,

It was that rather than traveling around Latin America and hiking and trekking, back then it was much more common to go work as a commercial fisherman in Alaska or go work on an oil rig. That was what a lot of people did when they left the army, right? Just for a couple years. I think it was done especially by fighters from the special units and people who were fighters in the military. It was common and it was a combination of adventure and traveling. You know, I get a lot of experience. I learn to know excellent people.

Americans, many of them people who live in the wilderness or are dealing with dangerous jobs, different dangerous jobs. And they all came to Alaska to work a little bit, to make some money. And I really enjoyed this period and I learned a lot. And after a year, I call my unit and I say, I'm done. I'm going to stay a civilian.

And it took me another year or so to leave America, to come back to the unit as a reservist. My commander from the first round, he did the IR, he would later on turn to be the head of the Navy. He said, I need you in the unit. I said to him, forget it. He said to me, if you are not agreeing today, the next time I'll take you to the interview to Yad Vashem to explain you what is the meaning of not having serious guys in the military.

So eventually I left my ambitions to be an engineer, which I started to work on, and I went back to the unit. I want to talk about October 7th. Every time I have a first-time guest on this podcast,

I asked them to take us to where they were the morning of October 7th, as they learned what was happening, whether they were somehow involved or they're watching it from afar. Most of our guests were watching it, not in it like you were in it. But, you know, it's one of those dark days where everyone who cares about Israel and even those who don't care about Israel does remember to some degree, often more than to some degree, quite vividly,

what was happening, what they were thinking. Can you talk a little bit about where you were that morning and how you were learning about the events? - It was Saturday. I'm getting ready to go to a cycling journey in the hills near to my house, near to home. And all of a sudden, my youngest daughter calling me and said to me, "There are sirens in Tel Aviv."

So I called the chief of staff. Chief of staff of the army. Of the army, Ertzi Alevi. And he said to me, this is from Gaza. It's not only rockets. I'm getting into a special evaluation of the situation. Within one hour, I've been in Tel Aviv. And I stayed there. I think I didn't see home for another three months. After a short period of time,

I collect all the generals and my directions at the end of this meeting before nine o'clock were one, we are in a war and don't take it lightly because once a minister of defense says this is a war, it means everything is normally open. You do whatever is needed. Second, I said to them, recruit everybody. Rank and file everybody.

Regular and reserve everybody. And third, besides sending them to the south, which already started, send them also to the north on chains with the armed vehicles on the roads. Don't wait for transportation for the tanks. And the reason was

that I couldn't believe that Hamas will open a war against Israel without coordination with Hezbollah. Now, it didn't happen eventually, but when we find the servers and the computers and the documents of Hamas in December and later on in February,

We learned to know that this coordination, according to Hamas, was accomplished. It wasn't accomplished according to Hezbollah. And eventually, Hezbollah didn't participate in a vast attack against Israel. And after, I think, 12 hours, we were deployed on the area, ready to do everything in the north.

At what point did you appreciate the magnitude of this? I take your point that you said you knew it was a war, but this was not any war. So you have to understand the situation. Everything was foggy. The chain of command, especially in Gaza, were either killed or wounded. Of course, a lot of them survived, but...

very important figures like commander of Southern Brigade were killed very early. And when you say in Gaza, you mean in the envelope of Gaza, like right there in the south? The Gaza division of the IDF is on the border. On the border, okay. Okay, and the commanders went to the front. This is very, very unique. We have been to a situation where

where generals were fighting with rifles and even with knives. And eventually, these are the people that block the invasion of Hamas and stop them from getting to Be'er Sheva and Ashkelon. And the bravery of these soldiers

the commanders, the fighters, some of them female that were driving tanks and commanding battalions. This was exceptional. An old soldier, but I've never seen anything like that. The next day,

On October 8th, I went to see it with my own eyes. I have been to Ofakim, to Be'eri, to Nahalos and other places. So these are the kibbutzim in the south. The kibbutzim and the city of Ofakim where 50 people were killed. And I went and I saw the bodies still on the ground. And I learned very fast that although the flag was the flag of Hamas, we were attacked by a commando division.

platoons, companies, battalions, pickups, boats, drones, parachutes, heavy machine guns, doctors, their doctors in the area, communication officers in the area. Everything well arranged in something like 70 different places, different routes. So the magnitude was understood in the first days.

But it's very difficult to arrange from zero to 100 in one second for a big formation like a military. So it took a long time before the IDF succeeded to bring people from different places, battalions and brigades. And they took us a few days to stop the enemy and then to clean the area. In 2006, one Israeli soldier was taken hostage, Gilad Shalit.

And one Israeli. And it, to some degree, paralyzed so many facets of Israeli public life. There was this understandable focus, this obsession over many years, sadly took years, to get Gilad Shalit out. On October 7th, at some point you learn, or October 8th, that over 200, some 250 Israelis are taken hostage.

When you learned that, what were you thinking? Because again, it's just another very dramatic, catastrophic indication that this is a whole new world. A country of nine, nine and a half million people, 250 people taking hostage is extraordinary. It means that everybody in Israel has some kind of direct or indirect connection to someone taken hostage.

When did it hit you, the magnitude of just that aspect of this war? Just the sheer impossible to get your head around high number of Israelis taken hostage? When I entered the first time to the headquarter, and this is...

about the first minutes that I'm learning what's going on. I understood... -Morning of October 7th. -Morning of October 7th, 8 o'clock or so. I understood that we are in a different situation. We already knew that there are dozens of hostages. We have seen videos of terrorists inside the Israeli communities along the border, including the SDO.

And I got to the recognition immediately that a lot will depend on my behavior. Determination, focus, how do you analyze the situation, and how do you keep cool and focused. And because it was very clear in the beginning that this is not only a battle against terrorists.

because there are more and more hostages. Later on, we learned to know that it's over 250. Second, in Gaza, there are 2 million people, and I knew that we are going to take over Gaza immediately. There is no other solution. So this is very difficult. And at the same time, I'm thinking about the north. I was worried that Hezbollah will attack when we will be in a very low point.

And basically this was their plan. It didn't happen. I knew from this point, because of my experience, Gilad Shalit was kidnapped when I was commanding Southern Command. And Aviv Khojavi was the commander of Gaza Brigade. I knew that with Hamas there is only one solution.

you need to take from them something that they need. And this is their lives, this is their equipment, headquarters, and so forth and so on. If you stay on the lines and ask them to negotiate,

They won't negotiate the prisoners. They will negotiate the future of Jerusalem and... - They won't negotiate Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons. They want something much more. - For them, it doesn't matter if a terrorist is staying 20 years in jail or 25 years in jail. So they have a long time. They have the fetch and they don't care.

For us, it's very important. I understood very well that if you want to achieve something from Hamas, you have to take from them something that is dear for them. And this is their life. This is their munition, equipment, industry, everything that connected to their military ability. And if you do it

in the right way, eventually they will come to you in order to achieve a deal. And that's what happened in the first deal. - How did that day end for you, October 7th? You talked about how the day started. Your daughter calls you, sirens in Tel Aviv. That's how your day starts. You remember how the day ended?

At two o'clock after midnight of October 7, I had a call with Secretary Austin. US Defense Secretary Austin. US Defense Secretary of State, General Lloyd Austin, which I knew and I met before, of course.

And we discussed some of the issues. And I said to him, Mr. Secretary, you took 250,000 shares, 155 millimeters from American preposition that were part of your storages in Israel, and you took them to Ukraine. 200,000 were taken in the government before me.

And the last 50,000, according to the American decisions, were taken recently. I asked you to give me this 50,000 back. They are still in Europe. And the secretary said, what do you need so many shells for?

If you are fighting against Hamas in Gaza, I said to him, we are in the Middle East. I understand that everything can happen. He's Bala might open a war, which happened the next day on October 8th. And please send it back to me. General Austin, Secretary Austin did it and he sent back the 50,000. But this can teach you about some mistakes that were done before the war.

When I entered my job, I learned to know that 200,000 shells are not there. So I asked the team, "What did you do with it?" They say nothing. I went with El-Zamir. Director General of the Defense Ministry. Yes. And we asked Elbit to start and manufacture shells. And we learned that since 2006, nothing was manufactured.

And when the war started, the machines were working and the pipeline was starting. So it teaches you a little bit about the situation that happened before that.

During the early days of the war, you stood before the nation and held yourself accountable for what had happened, which I can only imagine was difficult for you to do. Why and why then did you think that was so important to do? There are certain things that must be said.

And if you need to gain the support and the belief of the people who are going to follow your orders and follow you, you need to do it in a frank way and in the way that represents something that they can identify with. And I didn't want them to be in a situation that they will think that no one is responsible.

I'm part of it. I told you about my education and if you would ask who was pushing me to do so, this is my late father and my late mother that gave me the idea that there is always something that is more important than you. And this is your people, your country, and your family.

I want to go forward to, we're going to come back to those early days, but I just, on this topic, I want to go to January 10th, 2024, when you were visiting kibbutz near Oz.

which was one of the hardest hit, if not the hardest hit kibbutz in the South. The weekend of October 7th, I've visited there twice. I'm always shocked at the scale of it. 25%, one in four residents of kibbutz near Oz were killed or taken hostage. It's just total and utter, both physical and human devastation and catastrophe. But that day you visited, you encountered a woman named Rauma Kedem,

who had lost six family members of her own family on October 7th. To me, this encounter you had with her was one of the most intense. It may turn out to be one of the most iconic images from the year after October 7th. I want to play that scene. So we'll just play some video and then I want to talk to you about it.

Shoa.

What was going through your mind during that exchange? I really, I must say, I've never, I don't think I've ever seen a leader of any government have that kind of encounter in such a raw way with someone who's blaming the government you're serving in. I was visiting Miros and I was visiting all the other communities that were destroyed by Hamas.

and Be'eri, and Nachalos, and Kfaraza, and many other places. I met Reuma, and she talked to me. And this is one of the most difficult moments in my life, looking at her, understanding what happened to her,

This was sad. This was a very difficult situation for her and for me. And I was thinking, "Look what happened to this poor woman." I couldn't answer her, and I didn't want to answer. I just wanted to hear her, because this was very important, to hear what she says. And looking backward, I think that everything she said was right.

Everything. And the most important component was, "Where have you been?" The army. For her, I am the army. And I understand that. And this is the reason that we need a special inquiry to learn what happened and to make sure that we find the lessons and getting better.

as an Israeli establishment and Israeli defense forces and the Israeli government. I mean, we cannot suffer anything like that in the future and we need to deal with it. And the only way to pick the right lessons is by putting a clear and straight mirror in front of you and understand what is the situation.

Otherwise, nothing will happen. And this has to be done not only in isolated places like Niroz or other places, but also to see what is the general picture and what happened. What you have seen in Niroz is the symbol of this gap between the decisions and the change in the decisions that happened in the morning and took another 12 hours, definitely the first six hours.

So this, I think, is a very, very important point that we need to investigate. How did it happen? Especially these specific hours. But before that, you know, something was happening here in the last 10 years. I mean, they build their power in many years with Qatari money that Israel approved and basically support. This is something that has to be

really under the scope and we have to see what happened and why. Yoav, I want to now move to what I think history may judge as what could have been one of the most decisive or consequential days of the war, certainly in the days after October 7th, and that's the day is October 11th. But before we talk about October 11th,

Can you just talk about what was leading up to October 11th when you and Chief of Staff General Halevi were planning or thinking through or considering what to do, what sequence of steps could be taken against Hezbollah? So you had the one front in the south against Hamas, and you were already contemplating, since Hezbollah had already started attacking on October 8th, you and the senior command of the IDF were contemplating or planning for what could be done

against this emerging northern front? Well, as you mentioned, on October 8, Hezbollah started a war of attrition against Israel. It started in the Hermon Mountain, but very fast went all over the Galilee. Now, we understood, according to the intel, that their goal is to split Israel between Hezbollah and between Hamas.

And we had three divisions over there, more than that, with dozens of thousands of soldiers and tanks and armed vehicles and you name it. And you need to preserve at least two-thirds of the Air Force in any given time in order to be ready for them. Now, on October 10, we got information that 14 leaders died.

11 from Hezbollah and three Iranians are going to meet together in a place that we know where it is. A shallow place, not very deep. And this includes all the chain of command of Hezbollah. Meaning Nasrallah, S**t, Ak-S**t, all the names that you can recall later on because we hit them one by one.

This was discussed even on October 10 with the prime minister and a very limited group that were consulting about the war. I was speaking the whole night with all the officers, generals, including some who were reservists and arrived in the area. I heard different opinions.

There were some people that were in favor, some people they were against. I didn't sleep this night. And in the morning of the 11th, I went together with the deputy chief of staff and the Air Force commander to the headquarter of the Air Force.

And I was sitting there with the officers and they presented me the phases that I will elaborate very soon of how you are going to deal with Hezbollah. I was at the end of my evaluation. I went and I met with the chief of staff together with the Air Force commander. And we got separately to the same understanding that we have.

to go forward with the operation that was ready to deploy. Now what is the operation? First of all, let me start by saying that this dramatic day could have changed the course of the war and the way that we deal in this war. We could have eliminated all the chain of command of Hezbollah immediately. Then

The bigger strike will be to hit all the missiles and the rockets all over Lebanon, as we did on September. So it was estimated there are some close to 200,000 rockets and missiles in Hezbollah's arsenal that it could, at a time of its choosing, unleash on Israel. And you're saying you could have preemptively taken out a lot of it. We could have preemptive all of them.

because we did it a year later. And after a year, we succeeded to destroy something like 80%. At this time, it could have been 90% or 95% because a lot of it was in storages. So you don't have to hunt them one by one in the bush.

And you knew where they were? We knew everything. You have seen it later on, a year later. In this period, we knew much more. Because they hadn't been moved around by then. Some of them. Some of them. Yeah. And that includes all the heavy missiles that can reach Jerusalem and Tel Aviv and other places, but also some smaller diameter rockets. Now, this is the second phase. And the third phase, which was the most critical one,

Once we start to maneuver into the battlefield, as we did the next year, 15,000 terrorists would have put their vest with a walkie-talkie on their chest. In this walkie-talkie, there was three times more explosives that we had in the beepers later on. And it wasn't 4,000, it was 15,000.

Once you initiate it, you kill 15,000 terrorists in one strike. The meaning is, if we were taking this opportunity and use it against Hezbollah, we could have eliminated all the leadership, all the missiles and the rockets, and most of their fighters. The meaning is that there is no Hezbollah physically. Now,

The conditions were perfect. Why? One, full surprise. Second, they opened fire. There was the reason. The reason to start it was there. It was a pretext, meaning it was a provocation by them, by them attacking after October 7th. They opened fire against Israel, unprovoked, on October 8th. So we have to retaliate.

Third, there was an international backwind because of what was happening on October 7. Fourth, the unity in Israel was perfect.

On technical condition, we had three or four divisions on the border, very difficult to penetrate them. The Iron Dome was ready and full to deploy. We could take out of balance the axis of resistance, Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, by hitting the strongest component, Hezbollah. Now, I came to the prime minister

And I said, when you fight two enemies, you need to hit the stronger one first. Otherwise, you will be exhausted by the time you are finished with the weaker one. And some people were asking me, where this theory came from? I said, very simple. Read Clausewitz. You will understand. This is basics of war. If you fight against a few enemies, start with the stronger one. Otherwise, you will be exhausted. Now,

The most important thing is not the condition. The most important thing is what could have happened. First of all, if there is no Hezbollah, you take divisions and brigades and send them from the north to the south. So you can work simultaneously in Gaza, in Han Yunis, in the Rafah. So you can shorten the war into half or one third.

Second, you don't have to evacuate communities from the north because no one is there. And of course, you are not depend on what we called red lines. We always kept enough munition to retaliate against Hezbollah if they will open a full war. So you don't have to keep it and you can concentrate yourself on the south. If you look on this situation,

This is the most important point in the war after October 7, and we didn't use it. Now, in America, you used to say, water under the bridge. And I say, it's very unique that the water comes under the bridge twice. And that's what happened here, because after a year, we got a similar chance. And then we find ourselves killing the terrorists, the missiles,

Nasrallah and all the other issues step by step. No surprise. And we were able to do it in more difficult conditions. The meaning is that we could have done it very precisely in a way that could have changed the war, but we didn't use this opportunity. And to be clear, because I think many of our audience is familiar with the images of the Pager attack, as we all saw images of it.

You're saying that the walkie-talkies, which as we know it, followed the pager attack, that would have been the primary attack, and it would have affected, I think you said 15,000, 16,000? 1-5-0-0-0. Okay, 15,000 Hezbollah fighters, because they put on their vests, the walkie-talkies go here, over the heart, they go to fight, and the walkie-talkies blow them up, and you eliminate a big part of the Hezbollah. This was the major operation.

The secondary operation was the beepers. Right. We just know it in a reverse sequence. Well, the beepers turned to be very famous because this was the operation that worked. Right. But the major operation, the one that we invested in for so many years, it was ready for years, not one day. This is...

is something we could have done on October 11 and eliminate Hezbollah. Now, if the world was watching the Hamas massacre on Israel's south, and I do think initially, and it changed, but initially there was some understanding, there was some consensus internationally that Israel would have to respond to Hamas.

Do you not think just diplomatically and geopolitically it would have been risky for Israel to say, we know you're all focused on the south and Hamas, but we're going to take on this organization, Hezbollah, that really hasn't been. I know for Israelis, especially Israelis in the north, it was a big part of the story on October 8th. But for the world, they didn't know from Hezbollah, at least as it relates to that war. They knew of Hamas. They knew of the massacres in the south. And suddenly Israel's going somewhere else on another front. It would have been hard to get the U.S. and others on board. Yeah.

Your goal in the war is to gain victory, nothing else. All the rest is less important. And to gain, in order to gain victory, this was the right thing to do. And if you need to recruit someone, you can do it either before or after. So once we have done it and succeeded, the rest will be followed. So with all the respect to partners around the world, we need to defend ourselves by ourselves.

This is a very important issue that we have to know. And no one is going to fight for us. And you can look around on the world and understand what I'm talking about. So you knew of this plan because you had conceived of it with the idea of chief of staff. The prime minister obviously knew about it. Did the war cabinet know of this plan? Well, I don't blame the war cabinet.

Because eventually, after I finished with the chief of staff, I went to see the prime minister. And the prime minister immediately told me, go and talk to Jack Sullivan. I'll talk to the president. When I heard that, I understood he doesn't want to get into it because you don't talk to the president of the United States who doesn't like the idea of the war being expanded.

So you know what will be the answer. And I argue a little bit with the prime minister and eventually myself and later on Dermer joined me and we talked to Sullivan and we heard a very negative, very negative answer. I came back to the prime minister and said, we must do it. He was pointing to Tel Aviv from his office to the buildings around us. And he said, you see all these buildings?

Nothing will survive because of the retaliation of Hezbollah after you attack them. And he reiterated many times later on, in this day and in other days. And I wasn't that pessimistic. And I was thinking that we can win Hamas and win Hezbollah. And I was...

fully aware of our capabilities. And by the way, afterwards, I went to see the commanders and I was preparing this operation together with them. And I tried to call the prime minister and because he didn't receive the call, I sent somebody to ask his office to connect us and it didn't help. So eventually I went by myself to his office and I was asked to wait.

And after 10 minutes, when I was entering the room, I find Eisenkot and Gantz. Okay, so let's set this up. So you walk into the office, Gadi Eisenkot and Benny Gantz, who at this point were not part of the government before October 7th. They had joined the government. They had been in opposition. They joined your government, and they were now serving in the war cabinet. I mean, didn't they join that day? I went to the prime minister's office. When I enter...

I find them discussing the issue of a government, a unity government together with them. - So they're in the discussion about the idea of a war cabinet, including them joining the government. - So the reason that I'm working, I think it was something like one o'clock in the afternoon, maybe two o'clock, I'm walking into the prime minister office.

After 10 minutes, I'm allowed to enter in. And then I find the prime minister and Gantz and Eisenkot preparing the unity government. So the prime minister asked me to present this idea in front of them as well. And they reject the idea. And at that time, I understood the situation is that most likely it won't be approved.

because the prime minister against it and the guns against it and Eisencourt and they recruit the American president as well. And I was urging them to come to the cabinet and to have a meeting as soon as possible because this meeting of the

Hezbollah is going to take place at 6:00 PM or so for an hour, two hours, something like that. - And you know of this now from your intelligence sources that there's gonna be-- - We knew it from the day before and we were very precise about the location. It was proof later on that our intel is good. And we are looking for this window.

Eventually, when you collect the cabinet at five o'clock or so, maybe a little bit before that, and ask them to approve such a dramatic move, some of them are sitting the first time in their life in this cabinet. They just joined today and they are sitting there. You can understand what will happen. I presented it to the cabinet.

And then the prime minister asked Gantz what his opinion and Eisenkurt, and they reject, and he rejected. So the situation was very clear. And in between, because the window of opportunities was about to be ended. And just to be clear, the fighter jets are sitting there, like ready to go. It's more than that. Because the situation was...

that the window is about to be closed within one hour. I ordered the chief of staff and the Air Force commander to take off. So at the last point of the discussion, the planes are on the air ready to attack. And then we got a negative decision and they are landing.

So if you ask me what could have happened, we could have shortened the war into half. We could have dismantled totally Hezbollah, but we lost this opportunity. And just to be clear, the way you think, and I know it's hard to do counterfactual history, but had you hit Hezbollah, you would have obviously taken them off the map in terms of a front, right?

that those communities, tens of thousands of Israelis living in the north may not have had to have evacuated the north for a year. - Of course, 60,000 people. - And the IDF, in your view, would have then been able to pivot and focus exclusively on-- - The whole idea of Hezbollah was to split the abilities or the capabilities of the IDF, north and south.

Once they're gone, you take all of the forces that were responsible to block Hezbollah and you send them to the south. You double and more than that, the amount of forces that you can deploy in Gaza. The meaning is very clear. And of course, you reach deterrence in the first week and not after a year. So everything could have been changed.

- And it wouldn't have distracted from whatever planning or readiness focus would have been necessary for the war in Gaza? - When you fight two enemies, start with the stronger one first. Hezbollah is the stronger one, not Hamas. Once you finish with them, there is nothing that Hamas could have done because no one is going to support them. And to those of us who ask, what about the Iranians? I will ask, what about the Iranians?

We have seen what they did after we attacked Haniya and after we attacked Nasrallah. And eventually they hit us and we hit them and they kept silent because of the efficiency of the IDF that we can discuss later on. But basically, you see that the capabilities and the determination was there. So under much more difficult conditions, we succeeded in

to deter Iran and to destroy some of the capabilities of Hezbollah in a very sophisticated way. If this would have been done in a sequence in the first days, the achievement could have been tremendous. And the lesson that was learned by all our enemies, that it's not a good idea to start a war with Israel, could have been learned after a week and not after a year.

So again, just so our audience can visualize this, the Bieber attack of late September 2024, which was incredibly dramatic and everyone in the region and here was dazzled by, basically hit 4,000 Hezbollah operatives, terrorists, combatants, and it wounded them. It probably took them off the battlefield, I don't know if permanently, but it was 4,000. You're talking about eliminating permanently 15,000 Hezbollah fighters.

That's correct. First of all, let me salute to those who came with the ideas and initiated the operation of the beepers. This was an excellent operation.

But this was the secondary effort. The major effort was to kill 15,000 terrorists with the walkie-talkies on their chest. And this has to be done in a sequence that will bring them to the situation that they put the vest on.

What happened was that once we initiate the beepers, because the enemy was about to find them, that was the only reason we initiate them on 17, 18 of September, 24th.

They suspect, we kill some of them, they send some machines in order to check it, but eventually we learn that there are three beepers that are checking them. At this point, we didn't have any choice. We use them. - Use it or lose it. - Exactly, use it or lose it. We use it. It was remarkable achievement.

About 2,000 terrorists were hit in the hips, in the eye, in the fingers. The technology was there. And by the way, these two operations were ready maybe 10 years or five years before the war started. I mean, it was ready to deploy as a special tool for a war.

Now, after doing that, the next day we learned to know that they suspect the walkie-talkies. So we initiate the walkie-talkies. And what was happening is that 200 of them were walking efficiently. All the rest were in storages and in isolated places. And it blow and nothing happened. So this is a big problem.

miss of this war. And the issue is not only the walkie-talkies and not only the beepers. The issue is that if you make a full campaign, and we could have done it on October 11, then you achieve the full momentum and the full influence of such an operation. In this case, everything was step by step by itself. It was enough to

to create a great damage to Hezbollah, and it was enough to deter them. But we could have eliminated them physically, which is much better. If I will try to conclude

The beepers is only the spices on the main dish Which is the shish kabob that can be done by the walkie-talkies That was the course that was not taken and then Israel was bogged down in a war in Gaza it was still responding defensively to Hezbollah in the north and

And I will tell you from my perspective, there were moments of important success, but it was a slog. February 24, March 24, April. Is Israel going to go into Rafah? No. Is it, you know, back and forth negotiations with the administration? And then we get to summer of 24 and it appears that something has changed. Like the whole momentum and the pace and the reach of the IDF's

response regionally changed. So can you talk about that period from summer of 24 onward? Well, as you mentioned, we were fighting in the south, but in between, we preserve a level of escalation against Hezbollah. I was pushing all the time, day after day,

to make sure that Hezbollah is paying price every day. Because if they keep you with three divisions, with communities that were evacuated, and dozens of thousands of Israelis that are not in their homes, and they do it with very little effort and with very little damage,

That means that they can stay there forever. And the meaning is that they shoot one rocket, we hit them in one bomb, so they can keep going in this situation for years.

And I was pushing all the time to go and escalate against Hezbollah because I wanted them to pay price every day. And this is the reason that we killed their commanders in the south, division commanders, brigade commanders. And we were escalating and also started the special operations with special units to sabotage some of the infrastructure along the border.

And in one of these events, Hezbollah was shooting rockets and they hit the Druze village, Majdal Shams in the Golan Heights, and 12 Israeli kids were killed. It was Saturday afternoon. I went to there early morning on Sunday, and it was horrible to see.

what happened there. The blood was still on the ground and it was only second to what was happening on October 7. I talked to the families, I talked to the leaders. I went back to the headquarter before noon and I said to the chief of staff, "Herzi, we need to eliminate Mohsen, who is the military leader, the chief of staff of Hezbollah, under

Nasrallah, and we approve it with the prime minister, and the window is opening. Now, while we are opening this window, you don't know if it will take a day, two days, or two weeks, because it's a question of opportunities. But at the same time, another window is opened already, and this is to kill Haniya in Tehran.

And this is designated to take place on the night of July 30 to 31. So I went on the 30th to the Mossad, sitting there together with Dedy Barnea. The director of the Mossad. Director of the Mossad and those who are responsible for the operation. And I said to them, go on.

We trust you. Do what you need to do against Hania." And at this exact moment, I got a call from the military secretary that is with me and talking to the IDF, and they said,

We can hit right now Mursan in Beirut. So I said to the Mossad, good luck. And I went to the headquarter of the Air Force. And I'm sitting there with the Air Force commander and his staff. The chief of staff is in the north. And we are discussing this issue. And I see the plans hitting the target. And in minutes later, we knew that Mursan is gone.

So we had a conversation with the prime minister and the chief of staff, head of Mossad and head of Shabak, and we decided together that we are going to hit Hania the same night. And it was done by a bomb that find itself

over there in his room. In the heart of Tehran? In the heart of Tehran. That's the places he's visiting. Minutes later, I got a call from my friend Lloyd Austin, Secretary of Defense. He said to me, "What are you doing?" I said, "Killing our enemies." This guy, Mohsen, is responsible for the death of 12 Israeli kids. This is not something that we are going to ignore.

So he said, "And what about Haniya?" I said to him, "This is once in a lifetime. Either you take it or you don't take it. This is the Osama bin Laden of Hamas. He knew about what was going on before October 7th. He is responsible. This is a symbol. He is the leader of Hamas.

This is our goal. The conversation wasn't easy, but I'm sure we did the right thing. And from this point on, we started to arrange the second coalition. The first one was in April, when they aimed to shoot at us and eventually did on April 14. The second one was there on the political level. It was done between Secretary Austin and myself, and he was dealing with all the other partners.

On the military level, it was done between the chief of staff and General Corrila, and everything was going forward. And we needed the American support in certain issues. But remember that from this point on, we are under the option of the Iranians going to retaliate against us. Now, nothing happened for three weeks.

On the 25th, we made a preemptive attack against the missiles because they were aiming to shoot from the north. Hezbollah was aiming to shoot missiles into Israel. This attack was destroyed by us and we basically succeeded to avoid most of it. And nothing happened also then. So you have two isolated events. One, Haniyeh and Muxen in the same day.

Three weeks later, another event with the rockets. At this point, it was the last week of August, I went to the cabinet and I asked to move the center of gravity from Gaza to the north. It wasn't approved.

After two days, on Friday, the 20th of September, the chief of operations for the army, General Al-Basuq, come to me urgently. So we are three in the room, him and my military secretary and myself. And he said, we have all the leadership of Wadwan forces. - Special forces of Hezbollah. - This is the special forces of Hezbollah aiming to attack basically Israeli communities in the north.

He said, "We have them all in one location. What do we do?" Because there is no directive either by the government or by anybody else because it wasn't discussed and we didn't decide to move the center of gravity to the north. - But to be clear, they were meeting, it wasn't they were planning to attack Israel. - They were meeting in Beirut and the purpose of the meeting wasn't to send the flowers to Israel.

So I said to him, it took me 30 seconds, I said to him, "Get ready, we will do it. Go forward." And we hit and we killed all the colonels and all the brigadiers of Radovan forces and this ability to command those forces was eliminated for a long period of time. Now, I understood very well at this point

that this is a turning point in the campaign because this is one step above what was expected by Hezbollah. And in this moment, I discuss those issues with the army and with the forces. And basically, I ask them to promote forward three operations.

One was hitting all the missiles and the rockets, the one that was already an option on October 11. Second, detect and engage and kill Nasrallah. And the third is maneuvering into southern Lebanon in local raids. That was also ready. And they came to me with the different solutions. And the next day, Hezbollah arrived.

against Haifa and against Ahmad David. It was Monday, the 23rd of September, and we carried on four waves of massive attack against their missiles and the rockets. Started at six o'clock in the morning and ended nine o'clock at night. And the result was that we destroyed 70 to 80% of their missiles. For instance, they had 5,500 missiles

ballistic missiles that could have reached Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. At this day, they stayed with less than 800. They had 44,000 Katyusha missiles and rockets, and this day, or after this day, they stayed with less than 10,000. So it was a great success, and I asked them to show me the plan against Nasrallah.

So I went to the Air Force command with the chief of staff, and we were brief about the options about Nasrallah. And I asked them, if we are going with your plan, what are the odds? They said 90%.

I said, "How many tons do you put?" They said, "40 tons, 40 bombs." I said to them, "Double it, so it will be 99%." So eventually, they define it to be 84 tons,

With 12 airplanes, each one of them carries seven tons. This is the maximum that an F-15 can carry. And it took another two or three days. On Wednesday, the 25th of September, late at night, there is a meeting of the cabinet.

It turned to be that the chief of staff, head of Mossad, head of Shabak are presenting their plan. Then the prime minister asked me, "What is your opinion?" I said, "Destroy Nasrallah. Let's kill him. The sooner the better, and we need the permission." It was clear that there was a majority.

five supporters to reject it. And I said to the prime minister, bring it to a vote and let's go forward.

So he said, "I want to consult." So we went and consulted in the other room with the prime minister, myself, the chief of staff, Dermot, and some senior officers. And the chief of intel of the IDF is saying that it's a question of one or two days or even few hours before Nasrallah will leave the bunker and go to another place. So the prime minister is coming back

to the room and saying, "We are not yet ready to take a decision. We will do it when I will come back from the UN." - The UN General Assembly. - UN General Assembly. - From his meetings in New York. - He's saying, "We are not ready to take the decision. We will make the decision on Sunday after I come back from the UN assembly."

And basically he's flying to the States and Ozo Nasarallah is in a potential situation to leave the bunker. There is no decision and no authority, not to me and not to the prime minister from the cabinet.

The next morning, it was published in Israeli media and international media that the United States is bridging between Israel and Lebanon in order to achieve agreement. And the two parties that deal with it is Ron Delman and Jack Sullivan. And this is already supported by France and other 10 countries to have a ceasefire.

Some Israeli ministers rejected in public and one or two of them said, "We are going to leave the government if this is what's going to happen."

With or without connection to that, after another hour or two, the prime minister called me and the chief of staff and said, I was thinking about your suggestions from yesterday, and I think we have to go after Nasrallah and eliminate him. So that night, there is a transatlantic secure call.

Prime Minister and us in Tel Aviv and some minister in Jerusalem and... The prime minister is where? The prime minister is in New York. New York. So it took us something like three or four hours. And at four or five o'clock in the morning of Friday, the 27th, it was approved. The next day, I'm sitting with chief of staff.

And he said to me, this is something that has to be done in daylight because the plans are very heavy. And the Air Force commander demand the strike will happen in daylight. And we don't know if we have enough time. So we decided that the proper hour will be 1800, 6 o'clock p.m.

I called together with the officers. I called the prime minister in New York. It was four o'clock in the afternoon. And I said, prime minister, my recommendation is to hit Nasrallah at six o'clock, 84 tons. We need your approval. So the prime minister said to me, first of all, approved, but I want to delay it.

to 6:30 because on 6 I supposed to be on the stage in the United Nations. So we compromise on 6:20 because daylight was essential. And 15 minutes before we hit Nasrallah, I called Secretary Austin and I said the plans are on the air. We are going to kill this bastard.

He said it's going to create a major event in the Middle East. I said, Mr. Secretary, this guy is a bad guy. He's responsible for the death of thousands of Israelis and hundreds of Americans. So I think you need to evaluate this issue very seriously. And within a few hours, the president came with a very positive announcement saying that this event

have to be done and this was justice. And I praise him for doing that because some other countries didn't do it. Although they lost people and soldiers because of Nasrallah.

And at 6:20, I was at the headquarter of the Air Force and I was watching in real time 84 tons of bombs hitting the ground and killing Nasrallah. And the difference between the first bomb and the last one was seven seconds. Immediately everything collapsed.

And it took us a little longer to identify what happened. So this week, I close a personal circle because after I left my position as commander of the Navy SEALs. What year? The year I left in February 97. And on September 27, 12 Israeli commando fighters were ambushed by Hezbollah.

and killed in Lebanon. All of them were my soldiers when I was commanding this unit, and I knew them very well. Their commander, Korakin, was my personal friend. This operation was directed in general by Nasrallah and was commanded by Akil.

And those two figures were killed in the last week, in the 20th and the 27th. So for me, it was also closing the circle. Now I want to go to the Iranians. The Iranians hit us with 200 ballistic missiles.

And we were lucky not to suffer casualties, but the damage was big in several places. And when I talked to Secretary Osteen later, he asked me, "What are you going to do?" And I said, "As I promised you, we evaluate the situation according to two parameters." First one, what was the real intentions? If they shoot 200 ballistic missiles to

populated areas, what do they mean? And the second is what were the real results on the ground? So we are going to take them in a very effective way and they have to pay their price. So Secretary Austin asked me, what do you need? And I said, Mr. Secretary, we need five things. One, we need to fly over Iraq with your permission.

Second, we need some intel that we don't have, and this is intel from satellites. Third, we need you to help us to rescue deserted pilots if needed. Meaning if pilots are downed? If pilots are downed, we can rescue them, but it's a long operation with helicopters.

Four, we need to get more missiles from America in order to empower the Aero 3 and the Aero 2. So it's a Hajis boat and also TAD missiles, TAD batteries. This is for defensive capabilities? This is defensive capabilities. In anticipation of Iran's response? If Iran will respond, you can intercept their missiles. Although we have our systems, we wanted more.

And the fifth issue was to get refuel of Israeli jets from American tankers.

He came to me after a few hours and said, "All the first four approved. The fifth one not approved because we are not going to be that involved in this situation." Because they would have had American assets refueling Israeli jets mid-operation. Yes. On their way to Iran, but it would have been, I mean, from Austin's point of view, this would have been the US being directly involved in the operation. Yes, and he didn't accept it, or the president didn't accept it, and eventually we went

with the four components. I went to the prime minister and I said to him, "This is it." And by the way, at the same time, Secretary Austin invited me to visit the United States to close the details. So I went to the prime minister. He didn't approve the journey to America, but all the rest was approved because he said he wanted to coordinate it with the president. Basically, they got to the same arrangement, but

on a higher level based on what we did. And it took us another three weeks or so. And on the 26th of October, we carried out three different operations in Iran.

One was to eliminate the S-300. The S-300s, this is their defensive. This is air defense system around Tehran. The second one was to strip and to destroy all the air defense of the refineries and the oil and gas facilities in the Gulf, near Abadan. And the third operation was to hit their manufacture capability

to produce ballistic missiles. In this event, we hit the mixers that create the explosive. If you look at the result, we were able to degrade the ability from manufacturing two missiles a day into one a week, which is tremendous. At the end of this operation, after this night of the 26th, 27th,

Iran was weaker and Israel was stronger, exactly as was planned more than a year before that. And I think that the Iranians understood very well that we can hit any target in Iran, anyone. To my understanding, this is the biggest operation that the IDF carry out, and especially the Air Force, since the beginning of Six-Day War.

More than 100 planes were on the air and very sophisticated weapons. I think this was something that showed the world what Israel can do if necessary. About a week later, two events were happening. One very important and then the other one less important. The very important one was that a new president was elected in the United States.

And the less important one is that I was fired at the same day. Yoav, before we wrap, we're going to do a series of conversations and we're going to dedicate an entire conversation to the hostage dilemma and the hostage crisis and how Israelis had to navigate through this.

But just one specific question. You just laid out earlier the difference between Israel's war post July 27th and prior to July 27th. And as I was saying, it felt during those months before July 27th that Israel was kind of stuck. It was in a little bit of a muddle.

I'm trying to imagine, and it's not to say that it shouldn't have happened, but I'm trying to, and I'm not saying this was a reason it didn't happen, by the way, but I'm trying to imagine if when there was this sense, fair or not, that Israel was stuck in,

And in the midst of that, Israel cuts a ceasefire. While this threat from Hezbollah, we all know now, and you knew then, that Hezbollah was not as serious a threat as we know now, but most didn't know that at then. They were worried that Hezbollah had those 200,000 rockets and missiles and could, you know, and 60,000 residents from the north were not able to live in their communities. So Israel's borders were shrinking. Israel was under siege from different fronts, from Hezbollah, from Hamas, from Iran.

And in the midst of that, the image of Israel cutting a deal that releases hundreds and hundreds of terrorists from Israeli prisons. They got rockets flying from the Houthis. And then in Hamas, you have Hamas saying, we are reasserting ourselves. The difference between doing a deal in that context versus doing a deal now, where you have that post-July 27th world, where Israel's on the marsh, right?

And Israel is putting all its enemies on defense, on their back foot in this environment, in the post-July 27th world, in the way that Israel has reshaped the Middle East. I do wonder whether or not Israel is in a much stronger position to do deals like the one it did and take risks like it did because it's in this post-July 27th.

much stronger position like you laid out. Well, that brings us back to October 11. This is the reason I was asking to attack Hezbollah in the first place. If you would have done it so early, you could have achieved all this achievement much before that. And from October 11 till October

the end of the war, I was the one that was pushing forward all the time in order to destroy Hezbollah. I knew why. But there is also an issue of priorities that are related to the schedule. And not unlike all the other achievements, when you speak about live people,

The time is limited. So you have to deal with it the sooner the better. Otherwise, you lose them. And this is not only a value. This is not only the life of the people and their families. This is a declared target, a declared goal of war. So we have to achieve it. So if you don't achieve it on time, and the people are not with us, unfortunately, unfortunately,

You are not standing in your own achievements. So this is the reason I was asking to do it in the first days, to make sure that we hit this enemy, this brutal enemy, Hezbollah, in the first days.

With that, which leaves us a lot to get into and look forward to in our next conversation, I'll bring this conversation to a close. Jov, thank you for doing this. Thank you very much for having me here. As you said, first time in English. I hope I'll speak better the next time. This was great. Thank you. Thank you. That's our show for today. You can head to our website, arkmedia.org. That's A-R-K-M-E-D-I-A.

Thank you.

Call Me Back is produced and edited by Ilan Benatar. Additional editing by Martin Huergo. Rebecca Strom is our operations director, research by Stav Slama and Gabe Silverstein. And our music was composed by Yuval Semo. Until next time, I'm your host, Dan Senor.