ISRAEL AT WAR – GAZA, LEBANON & IRAN – PETER LERNER

Peter Lerner is the Director General of the International Division in the Histadrut, Israel’s General Federation of Labour.  Before taking up this position he served for many years as chief spokesperson for the IDF (Israel Defense Forces). Not only is Peter Lerner is an expert in the Middle East regional affairs and Israel’s national security, he is also widely experienced in media issues. On a visit to Australia sponsored by the Australia Israel & Jewish Affairs Council, Peter Lerner addressed The Sydney Institute on Wednesday 17 July 2024. The paper which follows has been taken from an edited transcript of that talk.

ISRAEL AT WAR – GAZA, LEBANON & IRAN

PETER LERNER

Thank you for coming to listen to me and my funny English accent.

If we are talking about the subject of Gaza, Hezbollah and Iran, first of all, we need to turn it upside down, because none of the instability in our region would be possible without the interference of Iran. Iran is the puppet master of everything negative happening in Israel’s region. Indeed, the war that broke out on 7 October would not have been possible without Iran’s funding, training, equipping of Hamas. Iran continues today to fund Hamas, to fund Hezbollah, to fund and equip the Houthis in Yemen.

So, what are we going to do about Iran? It is an absolute necessity to, first and foremost, look at Iran – front and centre – and identify the problem. Because any solution to any problem first requires that we identify the problem. We look at Iran and note what they’re up to in the Middle East. They are trying to solidify or broaden the scope of their hegemony in the region and project power across the region. They do that through proxy wars, but also by giving extensive financial support. Their intent to become a nuclear power is precisely because they want to solidify themselves as a regional superpower, as they were for many years in the history of of Persia. And we need to keep in mind that all this is happening under this Iranian umbrella.

Over the course of eight months, I served as an international spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). I’m here to talk about that experience and how we saw the war with Hamas develop. Indeed, I woke up in the early hours of 7 October after a family vacation. We were woken by the alarms that sounded in central Israel, where I live in the town of Ramat Gan, which is just east of Tel Aviv. We woke up to sirens and went down to our shelter. The intensity of the sirens indicated immediately that it was something different, nothing we’d endured before.

In the first few hours, there were several thousands of rockets fired at Israel. The application on my phone was ringing off the top extensively. It woke my wife up. We went to the shelter and, as we were standing in our shelter, I was watching on social media how things were developing, because Hamas wanted to advertise what they were doing. They wanted to tell the world how they were infiltrating Israel and committing the attack – what they called the Al Aqsa flood. Indeed, they flooded Israel. We came up from the shelter to our apartment in Ramat Gan, and we were watching the television. What I saw was extensive rockets coming over into Israel on one hand, but also the paragliders coming over the fence in southern Israel, near the Nova party, but also near Kfar Azza. And they were penetrating the border on approximately 30 different locations; a total of around 3,000 terrorists came into Israel on that on that morning and throughout several hours of that day. They conducted an unfathomable attack against the soft underbelly of Israel.

Now Israel, as you may well know, has endured wars, has endured terrorism, has endured conflict. But never in the history of the state of Israel have we had to endure such an onslaught on Israeli civilians in one day at any given stage. Indeed, 1,200 Israelis were killed, murdered, massacred on that morning. At least 240 were abducted into the Gaza Strip by Hamas, because they sought to create as much disruption, death and destruction to Israeli society as possible. What were they trying to achieve? How were they trying to achieve it? These are many questions that still remain unanswered.

One of the things that I did as a civilian on the 7 October was to sit down and jot down the failures of the IDF. I published those failures in the Jerusalem Post on 8 October – the morning after. The IDF failed strategically to identify that Hamas was, over the course of 17 years, building its power to be prepared for this war. Hamas had built an extensive underground tunnel system, the most expensive, expansive construction project ever to exist in the Gaza Strip. Not for the benefit of the people of Gaza, but only to secure and solidify Hamas control and security of the terrorists themselves. They utilised all of the powers of government, from the different ministries, to the building of the forces in order to be prepared for conducting the attack on 7 October.

Over the course of the last 17 years, with every engagement, every conflict that we’d had with Hamas, or with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, they were watching us very closely, learning and implementing the lessons learned from those conflicts. So, in 2014, most of their efforts were focused on building tunnels to penetrate Israel for an attack and to assist cross border attacks. If Israel severed that capability, they evolved and developed more capabilities such as the paragliders. Finally, they calculated they did not need to invest so much beneath the ground to attack Israel when they could attack over the fence and storm into Israel. Effectively, that’s what they did.

Hamas was able to do this, over the course of years, because they had financial support on one hand, but it also they had the benefit of the cushioning of the international community, international organisations that support the Palestinian people in Gaza. These organisations supported Hamas with social welfare capabilities, with health institutions, with medical institutions, with education, with schools. Effectively, the international community was excusing Hamas from their civic responsibilities to the people of Gaza. So, everything Iran was giving them, everything Qatar was feeding them, was all going into their diabolical plan to build a terrorist army.

There were three failures of the IDF on 7 October. First of all was the strategic misunderstanding of Hamas’ intentions. Israel did not prepare, perhaps for convenience, because there was no interest in creating one front out of the Palestinian arena. There was Hamas in Gaza and the Palestinian Authority in Judea and Samaria, the West Bank. It served a political interest to not have to deal with the Palestinian Authority. After all, they did not control Gaza. Hamas controls Gaza. So, strategically, Israel did not identify the intentions of Hamas operationally on the level of operations and intelligence; the IDF failed to prepare its forces for a mass invasion into Israel.

The misreading of those intentions led to the fact that the frontier on the border with Gaza was underfunded. The number of forces that needed to be in place were not in place because the threat was perceived to be elsewhere. The reality that evolved on 7 October created this new infiltration, despite the fact that there were some indications picked up by Israeli intelligence identifying that this could be an option. Finally, the third failure that I identified was the tactical failure. With the strategic failure and the operational failure, the last line of defence is the tactical forces on the ground that should have been equipped and prepared to prevent an infiltration. They were ill prepared, leading to the mass invasion into the civilian communities of southern Israel.

Today we look at the frontier with Gaza and we see a war that has developed since last October, a war that has two goals in mind. First of all, and I believe it is the most important goal, is the intention to bring back the hostages. Today, there are 120 hostages still being held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip. They have shown a willingness to negotiate for a hostage release in return for prisoners in Israeli prisons, Palestinian prisoners. I believe that Israel needs to increase military pressure to ensure that Hamas negotiate. Only under the threat of the sword will Hamas concede to some negotiations out of the understanding that maybe they will be able to survive. But they will only do that if their backs are to the wall. So, we have to be determined that we will bring back the hostages, and we will create the opportunity, the operational reality on the ground, to bring around to that hostage release.

The second goal, which is equally important, is that this war cannot bring us back to square one. Hamas can’t be trusted with the powers of government. They can’t have that power to build a terrorist army ever again. We can see that they can’t be trusted with that power because, with that power, they built a terrorist army that infiltrated Israel with the intention of massacre, murder and abduction.

The outcome of this war – and we are now nine months in – has meant the IDF has been able to destroy approximately half of Hamas’ fighting force, probably more. This includes almost all the most senior commanders, including the brigade level commanders, and including dismantling almost all of the battalions. This has meant the degradation of Hamas’ capabilities to fight but remains an ongoing battle. I believe that we need to pursue that until Hamas has no ability to conduct any battles. For all that, we should not look at each and every tunnel and say, each and every tunnel is the goal. We simply need to negate the capabilities the motivation of Hamas to fight. That can only be a result of the offensive capabilities on one hand, but also the prospect that something will be different at the end. That there will be a change at the end of this war.

There are three components challenging us in this war in Gaza. First is the fact that we are conducting combat in an urban area. It is densely populated with something like 2.2 million Palestinians living in an area which is surrounded by Israel on the north and on the east, and by Egypt on the south. If Israel wants to have a new relationship with the Gaza Strip, a different relationship, a relationship which is beneficial to safety and security, we must look at safety and security, not only for Israelis, but also for Palestinians.

In the course of this war, Egypt should have been part and parcel of the solution to combat in urban areas. They should have allowed Palestinian civilians to evacuate from harm’s way into the Sinai controlled by Egypt. It was not enough to shift people within the Gaza Strip because combat is ongoing. The Hamas terror tunnels, a system designed to conceal their activities, showed no regard for international humanitarian law or for the laws of armed conflict. They just don’t care.  On the contrary, Hamas abuses civilian locations, whether it is schools, mosques or international symbols such as United Nations. Hamas abuses those precisely to prevent Israel from conducting its activities against them. Hamas sees all of the civilian arena as their Iron Dome – an equivalent to Israel’s defence mechanism against Hamas’ rockets. Hamas uses the civilian arena to protect themselves.

Egypt could have opened the border for women and children. Yet there was no international outcry for Egypt to do so. Israel also was constrained because of the strategic relationship it has with Egypt. Hamas is the enemy of anybody, everybody decent in the region; there will be no talk of peace between Israel and the Palestinians as long as Hamas controls the Gaza Strip. Therefore, anybody interested in the prospects for peace, no matter what your personal preference for that peace looks like, needs to be very clear that Hamas can no longer control the Gaza Strip.

The operation is moving forward and the civilian impact of conflict, whether it’s the humanitarian control, the evacuation of people from harm’s way, the ongoing flow of hundreds of thousands of tons of humanitarian supplies into Gaza, continues. And it does have an impact. But Israel faces challenges on the international stage. These are, I would say, twofold.

First of all, from my background of operating and working within the media, we have a media that is extremely charged against Israel. They’re very focused on the human impact of war, which is natural. But less natural is the automatic and knee-jerk response of accepting anything Hamas says and questioning anything Israel or the IDF says. The second component on the international arena concerns the international humanitarian organisations. They are supposed to be impartial players, but they are anything but impartial. Throughout the course of this war, the World Health Organisation has not mentioned once the systematic abuse by Hamas of hospitals in Gaza. That’s just one example. And I could go through a whole list of organisations – UNICEF, UNRWA, the International Committee of the Red Cross and so on. All of these organisations have failed to acknowledge the problem is Hamas. If you can’t say the problem, you can’t find a solution.

This lack of acceptance that Hamas is the problem is probably my biggest frustration. I am a self-professed internationalist, my role in the international department as leading the international department of Israel’s Federation of Labour, the Histadrut, is to be that bridge between Israeli workers and workers of the world. And the failure of the international system cannot be starker than this war against Hamas. Hamas embodies everything that is evil but it is being protected by an international community.

Now to Hezbollah. Lebanon is a country being held hostage by a terrorist army. Hezbollah makes Hamas look like amateur hour. On 8 October, out of solidarity for their brothers in Gaza, Hezbollah began launching rockets, launching attacks and made seven attempts to infiltrate Israel, much like the 7 October attack. It was only out of the rapid deployment of our forces on 7 October, both to the north and to the south, that we were able to prevent those infiltrations from being realised as a substantial attack. And two officers were killed in one of those exchanges.

Hezbollah has launched some 6,000 rockets and explosive drones at Israel. Just today, and over the course of yesterday, there were something like 70 rocket attacks against northern Israel. How has Israel responded to this? First of all, the primary policy is a defensive posture. Israel has returned fire. It has also evacuated some 60,000 Israelis from the border towns in a contour of five kilometers from the border. They have no intention of going home until something substantially changes on that border. I have friends that live in kibbutzim in Metula and Kiryat Shmona, all in the north, in Kabri. They have no death wish, and they can’t go home. So, the defensive posture is focused primarily to enable the Israeli defence establishment to deal with the primary arena, Gaza.

But as we look forward and as we look towards the north, we realise that there are only two ways out of it, through diplomacy, and through military force. Hezbollah has something like 200,000 rockets, missiles, precision guided missiles. They have the Redwan force, which is the special forces of Hezbollah that have battle experience from fighting in 2011 and 2012 in Syria. They have been also primed and prepared, equipped and trained by Iran. The ability of Hezbollah to bring in weaponry from Iran through Syria into Lebanon is endless. And when I say that Hamas looks amateur compared to Hezbollah, it’s not only in the magnitude, but it’s also in the operational capabilities of this organisation.

The question remains, how will Israel deal with Hezbollah? Diplomacy? The United Nations Security Council resolution 1701 dictated the security situation after the 2006 war with Hezbollah. That resolution was supposed to ensure that Hezbollah was not on the border, was not south of the Litani River, which is 10 kilometers from the border with Israel. There was a United Nations peacekeeping force on the border in southern Lebanon. Looking at how the international community has failed Israel in Gaza, I would say that since 8 October, the United Nations peacekeeping force in Lebanon has failed Israel again.

In relation to Gaza, the efforts of the US administration are to create a package deal. One that brings home the hostages, one that creates a ceasefire, an enduring ceasefire that would relieve Hamas from control of the Gaza Strip, but one that also creates a new reality in southern Lebanon. Will they be successful is the question that we all need to ask ourselves. I hope so although, as a military man, we also say hope is not a method. So, the military today is preparing itself for a war that could develop along the border with Lebanon. My friends that live on the border with Lebanon have very little confidence that they can go back. There is very little faith in the international system and its ability to deliver better security for the people of Israel.

That lack of faith in Israeli society towards the government, the military, and also the international system is very challenging. There needs to be a diplomatic arm and a military arm that work in tandem. The political goals and the military goals need to be concerted in order to achieve a regional development which could include Saudi Arabia. There are prospects for reopening the normalisation process. It was Hamas themselves who admitted that their whole intention on 7 October was to derail that process. A process of normalisation with Saudi Arabia could have been a step forward in countering Iranian attempts to create a regional power. So, I believe the reality for us, and the ability for Israel to create a new security situation on the ground, has to work in tandem with international relations and the defence establishment to empower one another. There will be no negotiations out of weakness. Our enemies will see any weakness and try to exploit it.

Before 7 October, Israel was giving Hamas money, through the Qataris. They were allowing 18,000 Gazan workers to come to work in Israel. Those were supposed to be measures to create economic incentives, to create safety and security for all. But they took advantage of that. Thus, I don’t see any end in sight to the war in Gaza, unless there is some sort of breakthrough before the US elections. There may be an incentive there. But unless there is some sort of breakthrough, then we will continue to be in conflict, and the war will continue until we bring home the 120 hostages, either through negotiations or special military operations. And those are two very different means.

We understand that the hostages are dispersed throughout the Gaza Strip. We’ve conducted operations in Nusrat and brought home hostages in Khan Unis in Sajaiya. They are limited in their scope. In negotiations, like all negotiations, whatever you’re bartering for, there’s always going to be a compromise. But there are things that Israel can’t compromise over. And with that in mind, we will continue to work in order to defeat Hamas – we have no choice.

I never intended to wear the uniform of the IDF again. I never thought that they would call on me to speak on behalf of the IDF, because I’d been critical of the IDF after I retired. The only thing in my schedule prior to 7 October was a weekly protest in Israel against the government. But when 7 October happened, it brought all of Israeli society together out of the understanding that this is an issue of survival. We have no choice, we have nowhere else to go. And I would add, finally, we have no intention of going anywhere else.

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Question: You’ve mentioned casualties and the impact both on the people themselves, and on how Israel is looked at. An Australian Greens senator, Mehreen Faruqi, went on the ABC TV’s Insiders program a couple of weeks ago and, without being challenged by the presenter David Speers, said that Israel had slaughtered 40,000 Palestinians. Now slaughtered is a particular word. Apart from that, often there’s no differential made between civilians and fighters. So, is that figure of 40,000 correct? And if it is correct, or even if it isn’t correct, what would the percentage of fighters be out of that. It’s like Israel is only fighting civilians, the way that line is presented.

Peter Lerner: I would say first of all, frankly, nobody knows how many civilians have been killed in Gaza, precisely because there is the fog of war, precisely because it is a dynamic environment, and precisely because the nature of war is that people get killed. Civilians as well. And it is tragic. I can say that the number of terrorists the IDF has confirmed to have been killed in this war is something around 14-15,000. Now, the Hamas Ministry of Health which, if you only listen to the media, you won’t realise that is the Hamas Ministry of Health that puts out data. They put out data to the public that is consumed by the world media without question. Asked just recently, some seven weeks ago, about the sources of their information, Hamas Ministry of Health admitted that at least 10,000 of those of that number, it was then 38,000, are unverified deaths.

Now, what does that mean? That means that the sourcing of their information is not based on anything. It’s just this gut feeling, a sense of somebody said something, somebody tweeted about it or posted about it on social media, not confirmed. We actually analysed some of the lists that Hamas, the Hamas Ministry of Health, put out. What we found were discrepancies in their reporting – the data sheets that they put out. For instance, obviously they don’t identify anybody as a terrorist. Also, the terrorists don’t identify as terrorists. They don’t wear a uniform. Therefore, when they’re killed in combat, in their jeans, sneakers and t-shirts, they look like civilians. So, they’re brought in. When we were going through their lists, we found men with their name and ID number. But when we checked the ID number and the body on the table, it had been recorded that they were female. Then there is the matter of age. This is important because Hamas claims that over 50 per cent of bodies were women and children. But, in hindsight, even in their reviewed statistics after they have put out an announcement, it was actually less than 40 per cent women and children.

So, we need to be very cautious. I’ve encouraged all of the world media that I’ve engaged with throughout this war, during the time of my service, that we are fighting a merciless terrorist organisation that has embedded itself intentionally in the civilian arena. No military has gone to the lengths in the history of warfare as Israel has to evacuate civilians from harm’s way. We did it despite the fact that in some cases, for instance, we distributed maps distinguishing and telling specific locations and neighborhoods civilians should evacuate to and where they should evacuate to. Israel has devised a system, based on visual intelligence, open-source intelligence, and on telecommunication surveillance, that can indicate how many people have evacuated from place to place. But in distributing a map telling people where they need to evacuate from, we’re basically telling the enemy where we’re going to go to. In effect, we’re actually jeopardising the safety of our forces.

Civilian deaths in all wars are tragic. They are inevitable. And I would argue that if we just look at what we know and even accept their numbers, we’re still at a ratio of about one to one, maybe just a bit more than that, which is also unprecedented in modern war. The Hamas terrorist organisation has made the Gaza Strip their fortified position, at every corner, at every junction. And that has been a huge challenge. But we, in turn, created the operational capabilities in order to try and address that.

Do we expect the world to stand up and applaud us? I don’t think so. But I can say from the relations and the communications we’ve had with like-minded militaries, they look at us in awe. People from Sandhurst, from West Point. They say, “You are setting a standard we can’t live up to.” This does not comfort those that have lost lives – Palestinians that have lost lives, definitely not Israelis that have lost their lives in this war, and the soldiers that are losing their lives every single day.

But I would say our obligation, both professionally and morally, is to continue to distinguish between civilians and the terrorist organisation. Even though, on 7 October, when we saw Hamas abducting Israelis, young women into the Gaza Strip, we saw Palestinian civilians celebrating on the streets in Gaza. We know because they were live streaming in it on their own social media. And so there is a challenge here. It’s a challenge also politically and internally in Israel. Who are the civilians of Gaza? Do they support Hamas? There is polling that suggests that everybody supports Hamas. But as a professional military, we have a duty and an obligation to seek out those that are armed, to seek out, attack and kill those that are intending to conduct more atrocities against us. Yes, we’re doing a good job, and war has consequences. If you decide to pick a war with Israel, you have to realise that there are going to be consequences.