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You are listening to Today Explained.

2:25

Alison Kaplan-Summer hosts the Haaretz

2:27

Weekly Podcast. We reached out to her at

2:30

her home in Renana near Tel Aviv

2:32

to ask how all this began.

2:35

We

2:55

went back to sleep and ignored it. We

2:57

didn't immediately think there was an emergency

3:00

situation. 5-10

3:02

minutes later, we heard an actual

3:04

siren go off outside the house. We

3:07

kicked into gear as we have in previous

3:10

rounds of conflict.

3:17

We got our daughter out of her room

3:19

and we all went down to the reinforced

3:21

room in our house and

3:24

waited for the siren to end and

3:26

waited for the setting sounds

3:29

of some sort of missile collision

3:31

either mid-air or something landing. That

3:34

happened and that's when we all tuned into

3:36

the news and we thought this was another

3:38

typical round of air

3:41

conflicts between Hamas in Gaza

3:44

and Israel.

3:44

Turning into the news, it became very clear

3:46

that this was a situation unlike anything we'd seen

3:48

before.

3:58

Hundreds of Hamas fighters

3:59

poured across breached border

4:02

points, smashing

4:04

Israel's defenses, heading

4:06

to more than 20 communities in a house-to-house

4:09

search, largely unopposed.

4:12

This happening across a wide area,

4:15

in communities which were clearly part

4:17

of a targeted plan. Once

4:20

there, the fighters killed indiscriminately,

4:23

in the single deadliest day in

4:25

Israel's existence. And there were

4:27

also

4:27

reports that inside

4:30

adjacent cities, Ashkelon is

4:32

a major city not far from the Gaza border,

4:35

Sderot, that there was shooting

4:37

going on in the streets, that there

4:39

were Hamas terrorists inside these

4:41

Israeli cities, and there were battles going

4:44

on. This was something that we were unfamiliar

4:47

with, had never seen before, and didn't

4:49

even seem possible. The

4:52

Israeli army has said that at least 50

4:54

soldiers have been kidnapped to Gaza.

4:57

There are reports of 100 and 150

4:59

Israelis in total being held in Gaza. That's

5:04

what Israel's UN ambassador has

5:06

recently told the media. So this kind

5:08

of mass hostage situation is something

5:10

that Israel has never dealt

5:12

with before and is completely

5:15

unfamiliar with how to handle. People

5:17

make a lot of comparisons between what

5:20

has happened now in terms of military intelligence

5:22

failure and the Yom Kippur

5:24

War exactly 50 years ago. It

5:27

was on October 6, 1973, that the

5:29

Yom Kippur War broke out. This

5:33

was October 7, 2023, on

5:36

the

5:37

Jewish holiday Sukkot, that

5:39

this war

5:41

broke out. But when you talk about hostages

5:43

of prisoners of war, back then

5:45

Israel was in a much better position because it was

5:47

dealing with the Egyptian army, which was very

5:50

organized and operated according

5:52

to international procedures in terms of who

5:55

the prisoners of war were, how they

5:57

were being treated. This was all

5:59

known. and it is clear that there's going

6:01

to be a long and

6:04

exhausting and depressing

6:07

process of trying to figure out who

6:09

is being held hostage, where

6:11

they are, the negotiations

6:14

are going to involve knowledge of

6:16

the hostages as well as trying to

6:18

ascertain their safe return and

6:20

the return of bodies of any of those

6:22

who are killed on the other side in Gaza. This

6:25

is a great wild card, I think, of the events of

6:27

Saturday. This is something that Israel has never seen

6:29

before or dealt with before.

6:37

And in the hours and even

6:39

days that followed, give

6:41

me a sense of how Israelis

6:44

came to understand how vast this

6:46

attack was.

6:47

We understood that it was in so

6:50

many places, in so many communities,

6:53

and there is so much confidence

6:55

in the Israeli military. This is

6:57

a people's army, right? These are our fathers,

7:00

brothers, sons, people we know. There

7:02

is a huge amount of belief that

7:05

when there's a problem, the army is there to take

7:07

care of it. So this belief

7:10

increased over the course of the coming

7:13

hours and unbelievably

7:15

days when we learned

7:18

that these people in these communities

7:21

were locked inside their safe rooms,

7:23

hearing gun battles going on around them,

7:25

learning that there were terrorists in their homes, and

7:28

some of them were sitting and waiting for help

7:30

for hours and some overnight

7:32

for days and people were calling for

7:35

help, sending pinpoint locations

7:37

to the authorities of where they were saying that

7:39

they needed to be rescued in many cases

7:41

that they were injured and no help came

7:44

and nothing was on the way. This is a huge,

7:46

huge crisis of confidence in

7:49

the capability of the Israeli army. That's

7:51

continuing even right now.

7:53

We have planes, we have helicopters, we have

7:55

tanks, we have everything. And the

7:58

idea is... For the

8:01

first couple of hours, it's like we

8:03

were in the army. The idea wasn't

8:06

exist.

8:07

So obviously we have the shock of the attack,

8:09

but it sounds like we also have a

8:12

fair amount of shock over just

8:14

how this happened. At

8:16

this point, what is your understanding

8:19

of the answer to that question? How did

8:22

this happen? How was the Israeli

8:24

military caught so flat-footed?

8:27

I am no expert in the Israeli

8:29

military or military intelligence,

8:31

but I have spoken inside

8:34

Haaretz where I work with former

8:36

military correspondents, with someone considered

8:39

the utmost expert in military

8:41

intelligence. And they are as

8:44

unsurprised as I

8:46

am that there was no detection

8:49

of any kinds of plans of something

8:51

on this scale. That is going

8:53

to be the subject of some kind

8:55

of major inquiry. After

8:59

the guns grow silent, there will

9:01

be implications for it. But

9:03

what everyone across Israeli society is saying

9:06

right now is we just don't have the

9:08

time, energy, or bandwidth for

9:10

asking that question right now.

9:12

Tell me how Israel is responding.

9:15

Israel is responding, first of all, in

9:17

the way that it normally responds, which

9:19

is to immediately launch

9:22

a major operation over

9:24

Gaza from the

9:25

air. The might of Israel's

9:28

arsenal thundered down on Gaza's

9:30

cities, turning vast

9:32

swaths of the Palestinian enclave to

9:34

rubble in retaliation for Hamas's

9:37

unprecedented attack. Israel's

9:39

military told people to leave, but many either

9:42

could not or did not and perished.

9:45

Massive

9:45

bombing is taking place. Israel

9:48

has a bank of targets, Hamas

9:50

targets, Islamic Jihad targets,

9:53

which every time that there is a

9:56

conflict happening, they start

9:58

to go down the list. And the

10:00

other preparation that's going on on

10:02

a major scale is preparation

10:05

for some sort of assault

10:07

from the north, from Lebanon,

10:09

from Hezbollah forces, suspecting

10:12

that whatever inspired Hamas

10:14

to do this at this time, there's a possibility

10:17

that Iran is involved. It's

10:19

no secret that Iran, a sworn

10:22

enemy of Israel, has long provided

10:24

financial and military aid to Hamas,

10:27

along with other militant groups in the region,

10:29

such as Hezbollah in Lebanon. Hezbollah

10:33

may be joining the assault, the effort,

10:35

and so there are major forces going up

10:37

into the north, reinforcing border

10:40

towns for a short period. There's no way of knowing for

10:42

certain it's going to happen, but people feel

10:44

like it's a strong likelihood.

10:45

Smoke rises from southern

10:47

Lebanon after Israeli strikes, sparking

10:50

fears of a major

10:51

escalation on

10:52

another front.

10:59

I don't know if you can answer this question, Allison. I don't

11:01

know if anyone can answer this question, but I have

11:03

to ask it, so I'm going to ask it, what

11:06

comes next? Do we have any idea?

11:08

None of us have any idea of

11:10

what comes next after something like this.

11:12

I mean, in any situation, we don't know what comes

11:15

next, but there's going to be some sort of major

11:17

change. Prime Minister

11:19

Benjamin Netanyahu, it was a lot of sort

11:21

of labor rattling and posturing. He

11:24

says we're going to change the face of the Middle

11:26

East. I don't know how much he means that,

11:29

but I do know that Israelis

11:31

will not rest, will not let their government

11:34

rest until something major

11:36

changes and there's a very different configuration

11:39

of power and force than there was in the past.

11:52

Allison, Kaplan, Summer, Haaretz,

11:55

and Israel, we'll ask why when

11:57

we're back on Today Explained.

13:23

as

14:00

a means of theoretically degrading Hamas.

14:02

The problem is, it doesn't seem to have challenged

14:05

their rule in any way. So Hamas

14:07

has been in charge for around 16 years

14:09

now, and Israel

14:12

has fought multiple wars with them in the past. On

14:14

the holiest night of Ramadan, more violence

14:16

on the streets of occupied East Jerusalem. Palestinian

14:19

protesters threw water bottles, Israeli

14:22

security forces used stun grenades...

14:24

There are a variety of different causes of those different flare-ups,

14:26

but periodically it just seemed like violence would spike, that

14:28

it would go back down with significantly

14:31

more casualties on the Palestinian side. This

14:33

man was beaten on the ground in front of us,

14:36

and then ushered away into the

14:38

night with no attempt to detain him. But

14:40

it was the status quo that from the Israeli point of view is

14:42

something they could live with, even if it's not ideal.

14:45

This attack that Hamas had been planning

14:47

for sometimes completely shattered that status quo. So

14:50

we came here through a long, long,

14:53

long road of conflict between

14:56

Israel and the terrorist group Hamas. But

14:59

ultimately it seemed that Hamas was for

15:01

reasons that are not yet fully clear, trying

15:04

to break the status quo as

15:06

it comes between Israel and Gaza. And

15:08

it's important to note here that Hamas

15:11

is not Palestine, and Benjamin

15:13

Netanyahu is not the

15:15

people of Israel. But let's talk

15:17

about the people in power

15:20

right now. What has the Netanyahu

15:22

government's policy towards Gaza

15:25

and the West Bank been up

15:28

to this point?

15:29

The basic goal of the

15:31

sort of broad center of the Israeli

15:33

public is security. They

15:35

want to be safe. They want to be free from

15:37

terror and be able to live their lives as a very

15:40

wealthy, first-world, advanced democracy.

15:43

The Palestinians create a significant problem

15:45

for that, because in the West Bank they functionally

15:48

maintain an autocratic military rule over the

15:50

Palestinian population. Cold

15:51

and cramped. This is the only way

15:53

for these Palestinian workers to leave the

15:56

occupied West Bank to get to their jobs

15:58

in Israel.

15:58

Same thing every day.

16:01

This is not a life. In what country in the world

16:03

does this take place? It only happens to us

16:05

Palestinians here because of the occupation.

16:08

And in Gaza, there's an enclave controlled by

16:10

an anti-Semitic militant group that

16:12

hates Israel and wants to destroy it that they

16:14

have to pen in. But the question is how you handle

16:17

those things. Netanyahu, who is a very

16:19

right-wing leader, has chosen

16:21

an aggressive posture designed not

16:24

just to maximize security, but to

16:26

prevent the formation of any kind of Palestinian

16:28

entity that can even come to a two-state

16:31

agreement with Israel that could lead to

16:33

something that could

16:34

functionally lead to the end of Israel's territorial

16:36

ambitions in the West Bank. Netanyahu

16:38

attempted to mobilize his hardcore base

16:41

with two stunning promises. He

16:43

will not support creation of a Palestinian

16:45

state, and he will continue to construct

16:47

Jewish settlements

16:48

in East Jerusalem.

16:51

And so in order to do that, he

16:53

has pursued this very, very complex policy

16:55

dance that has involved deepening Israeli

16:58

control over the West Bank, in part

17:00

by allowing for settlement expansion, and in Gaza,

17:03

both restricting the flow of good and

17:05

blockading it to prevent Hamas from

17:07

arming itself, but also throwing

17:10

up the foundations of the group, allowing some

17:12

money to flow in, for example, in

17:15

order to essentially

17:17

make sure that it's not going

17:19

to lose power. It seems bizarre

17:21

and counterintuitive to care about security, but

17:23

if you're in Netanyahu and you really believe that Israel

17:25

is best served by

17:27

faving off the world's push for a two-state diplomatic

17:30

solution, it makes sense that you

17:32

see Hamas as kind of an ally, because you point to them and you

17:34

say, we can't negotiate with them. It's this

17:36

horrible situation where extremists

17:39

on both sides benefit from the other's existence.

17:41

This is not the most responsible government

17:44

in Israel, and in fact, maybe

17:47

one of the most

17:50

irresponsible

17:55

in the country's history. It's helpful

17:57

to look at some of the concrete things that are being said.

17:59

Defense Minister Yov Kallan, which by

18:02

the way is one of the more responsible

18:05

members of the current Israeli government, has said

18:07

this after the attack, quote-unquote, I have

18:09

ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There

18:11

will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything

18:13

is closed. We are fighting human animals and

18:15

we are acting accordingly. I mean, this

18:19

is a violation of law for it. Israel

18:21

has cattle for electricity, fuel and

18:23

water supplies to one of the most densely

18:25

populated territories in the world. Hospitals

18:28

are overwhelmed and unable

18:29

to function without basic services.

18:33

As far as I understand it, you can't just cut

18:35

off electricity, food and fuel for an entire civilian

18:37

population. And the use of

18:39

the language human animals is

18:42

terrifying. I mean, this is eliminationist language. This

18:44

is talking about justifying killing

18:46

by dehumanizing your opponents. What

18:49

happened to us is complete destruction. We

18:52

are the Al-Bawab family and there were 150 people

18:55

in this building. All of my family's homes

18:57

have been destroyed. Now when you start talking like

18:59

that,

18:59

I

19:00

mean, things get really dangerous. Entire apartment

19:03

buildings, homes, schools and

19:05

even a mosque weren't spared in the air strikes.

19:07

That's how Hamas talks about Israelis. And

19:10

look what they just did. Look at the mass

19:13

slaughter of Israelis that they engaged in. The

19:15

tenor of rhetoric coming from

19:17

the current Israeli government about what they're about to do in

19:20

Gaza, to add on to over 15 years

19:23

of deep, deep, deep, deep

19:25

pain for the Gazans inflicted by periodic

19:28

wars in the Israeli blockade. I mean, I

19:30

just shudder to think what's going to happen

19:32

to innocent people in Gaza and innocent

19:34

Israelis.

19:38

If the Netanyahu government isn't seriously

19:40

considering a two-state solution, what

19:42

have they been seriously considering? Have

19:45

other deals been on the table?

19:46

There is no other deal

19:49

that is acceptable to both Israelis and Palestinians.

19:52

Basically, there are three

19:54

potential solutions to the Israeli-Palestinian

19:57

conflict. The first is two states living side by side.

20:00

The second is a one-state

20:02

solution in which Israel incorporates

20:05

both the Palestinian territories and dissolves

20:07

its Jewish character by granting all Palestinians

20:10

the right to vote in citizenship. And that's basically

20:12

the end of Israel. So that's a non-starter for Israel

20:14

and could potentially lead to significant amounts

20:16

of ethnic violence. The third

20:19

solution is basically

20:21

similar to the second, except Palestinians

20:23

are not granted the right to vote

20:25

and are not considered citizens. This

20:27

is the favored solution of the Israeli

20:30

far-right, which includes significant

20:32

elements of Netanyahu's government. And

20:35

it would amount to apartheid, that's what it is. And

20:38

it's one that we have been creeping towards. The

20:41

status quo is not exactly this,

20:44

because there's no formal annexation.

20:46

Some far-right members of Netanyahu's government have

20:49

been pushing for. And the government even itself

20:51

attempted to implement at one point before backing

20:53

off, thanks to incentives from the US and Arab

20:56

states. So you

20:57

had a right-wing government that was slowly over

21:00

the course of time by expanding the size of settlements

21:02

in the West Bank, by keeping up the Gaza

21:04

blockade, by keeping Palestinians divided, was

21:07

pushing the country towards a one-state apartheid

21:09

solution. That's where we were headed

21:11

right now, if things didn't change.

21:14

From 2021 to 2022, it

21:16

looked like there might be some kind of possibility for change.

21:19

Israel had a new government that contained

21:21

elements from the right all

21:23

the way to the left, including an Arab

21:25

party, that had dethroned Netanyahu

21:28

and his far-right allies. And it looked

21:30

like they might have been moving towards, in theory,

21:35

something that would be better than the

21:37

status quo. The problem is that coalition

21:39

itself was divided between

21:41

different groups that have very, very different

21:44

views of the Palestinians. And so they couldn't really take any action

21:47

on that policy. The

21:49

coalition fell apart. We got Netanyahu back

21:51

with an even more right-wing government. So

21:53

it's hard to know for certain, but tell

21:55

me what we can be sure

21:58

that Hamas was responding to.

21:59

We all have some theories, and there

22:02

are some things that are in their public statements, right?

22:04

So the best

22:06

or sort of clearest causal

22:09

pathway for this has to do with conflict

22:11

in the West Bank. Land for blood and

22:14

blood for land.

22:16

These huge Israeli enclaves

22:18

in the West Bank, illegal under international

22:21

law, make a future Palestinian

22:23

state virtually impossible.

22:26

So

22:27

for the past several months, tensions

22:30

between Israel and West Bank Palestinians

22:32

have been heating up considerably. Basically, there

22:34

was an ongoing cycle of violence. The

22:37

settlers, Israeli settlers, emboldened

22:39

by the far-right government that was encouraging

22:41

them and supporting them, have

22:44

been engaging in a series of atrocities against Palestinians

22:46

in the West Bank. Killing them, burning

22:49

their houses, scaring them, seizing their land,

22:52

etc. There have been retaliatory responses

22:54

by Palestinians and also independently launched attacks

22:56

on settlers from Palestinians, which

22:59

then leads to settler retaliation

23:01

on its own. So it doesn't really matter

23:03

who started it, it just escalates.

23:06

It's happening under a condition in which settlers

23:08

feel like they can act with impunity. This

23:10

has led to Israel having to redeploy

23:13

significant troops to the West Bank, and

23:16

they have been conducting bloody raids, which

23:18

have then infuriated Palestinians

23:21

and sparked retaliation on its own. Settler

23:24

violence against Palestinians is

23:26

now increasingly common. So

23:28

you get an exceedingly

23:31

violent situation going on

23:33

there where things look like they're getting worse. And

23:35

this means two things. First, Palestinians are angry

23:38

and angry at Israel, which gives

23:40

Hamas an opportunity to capitalize by showing itself

23:42

to be the force of resistance to the Israeli occupation.

23:45

And second, and crucially, it

23:47

means the Gaza border isn't

23:50

defended in the way that it typically is,

23:52

because Israel has pulled so many of its active

23:54

duty forces into the West Bank.

23:56

Gunshots echoing through

23:58

the Janine refugee camp.

23:59

smoke billowing into the sky. The

24:02

Israel Defense Forces launched their largest

24:05

West Bank operation in two decades,

24:07

since the second Intifada, or uprising,

24:09

in the early 2000s.

24:11

So that means Hamas has an opportunity. And

24:13

one of the things you hear as a very good piece in the Washington Post

24:15

about this is empty guard

24:17

towers and military posts that were unmanned

24:20

at the border, because people were

24:22

doing things to secure settlers and their activities

24:24

in the West Bank. It's a striking failure

24:26

of the Israeli government for basically stoking

24:28

this kind of conflict in the West Bank and the current government's

24:31

policy. And for Hamas, it was this golden

24:33

opportunity to breach the

24:35

border. And that's what they did to horrible, horrible

24:37

results. So it

24:40

has to do really, I would say,

24:42

more than anything else with both

24:45

the state of anger and frustration

24:47

among Palestinians, which is not new, it's been

24:50

going for a long time, but has spiked. And also

24:52

with the vulnerability on the Israeli

24:54

side and the political chaos inside Israel, which

24:57

has distracted it and led to Israeli defense

24:59

officials warning publicly, repeatedly, that

25:02

security was being endangered by the government pushing

25:05

confrontational domestic policies at home that

25:08

were dividing the population

25:09

against itself. So it's kind of a perfect

25:11

story.

25:19

Zach Veicham is the author of the forthcoming

25:22

book, The Reactionary Spirit.

25:24

You can also read him at Vox.com.

25:27

Our show today was produced by Halimah Shah

25:29

and Abishai Aartzi. We were edited

25:32

by Amina Al-Sadi, fact-checked

25:34

by Laura Bullard and Amanda Llewelyn,

25:36

mixed by Patrick Boyd and Rob

25:38

Byers. I'm Sean Ramis from

25:41

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has a voice. You can even reach new audiences

26:59

and get paid via the Creator's. Flex

27:02

your music paste, and find your music

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community on AMP.

27:05

Download AMP on iOS in the App

27:07

Store or for Android in the Google Play

27:09

Store, available in the US

27:11

only.