← Call Me Back - with Dan Senor
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- [00:00]
Ronen Bergman
Foreign.
- [00:04]
Dan Senor
You are listening to an art media podcast.
- [00:10]
Ronen Bergman
So on the third graph of this memo titled Under Horrific Events and Images, sinua writes, events must be planned in advance from which horrific images will emerge and create terrifying destruction, heartbreaking sights, a terrible fire. Five or even ten images will instill mortal fear in the Israelis. Then he says two or three operations must be organized whose purpose is the burning of an entire neighborhood or a kibbutz. They will pour fuel or diesel from a special tanker, burn the place and broadcast the images. And then he goes to explain what's the purpose of decapitating bodies and injecting it into social media.
- [00:56]
Ilan Benatar
Foreign.
- [01:09]
Dan Senor
On Wednesday, October 22nd here in New York City. It is 2:00am on Thursday, October 23rd in Israel, where Israelis continue to slowly receive bodies of the remains of hostages that were killed on October 7 and were in Gaza.
- [01:27]
Ilan Benatar
Before we get into today's conversation, just.
- [01:30]
Dan Senor
One quick housekeeping note. A reminder that on Thursday, October 23rd at 8:30pm Amit Segal and Nadavael and I will be at the Stryker center in New York City for a live podcast. A live taping of the Call Me Back podcast where we will be having a long and meaty conversation about where Israel is now post deal or at least as the deal is being implemented and where things are going. And then we have a bunch of other questions that have been sent into us from inside Call Me Back subscribers that we will be getting into as well. A lot of ground to cover. It'll be in front of a live audience. If you are still interested in registering, please go to the Stryker center website or just follow the link in the show notes to register. There's still a few seats left. Now onto today's conversation. Tuesday night, Hamas returned the bodies of two more slain hostages, later identified as 85 year old Ari Zamanovich and 38 year old Tamir Adar, both residents of kibbutz near Oz. In fact, Zalmanovich was one of the founders of Kibbutz near Oz. This brings the total number of hostages bodies still being held by Hamas to 13. Hamas claims that it is unable to locate the remaining corpses and will require additional machinery to do so. Meanwhile, US Envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner were back in Israel this morning to push forward the second phase of President Trump's Gaza plan, and on Tuesday morning they met with nine of the 20 former hostages who returned to Israel just over one week ago.
- [03:10]
Ilan Benatar
All the time.
- [03:10]
Dan Senor
Also on Tuesday, U.S. vice President J.D. vance arrived in Israel as part of the effort to strengthen the ceasefire and ensure the continuation of Trump's Gaza plan implementation. Vance visited the new U S Israel Ceasefire Coordination center in the southern city of Kiryat Ghat where he spoke about the need to fully disarm Hamas. Today, Vice President Vance and Prime Minister Netanyahu held a joint press conference from the Prime Minister's office in Jerusalem in which Vance emphasized America's commitment to rebuilding Gaza and promoted the expansion of the Abraham Accords. During his visit, the Vice President also visited the city of David, er David and hailed it as a World Heritage Site. This was the same er David and the same site that Secretary Rubio visited a few weeks ago.
- [04:02]
Ilan Benatar
The Vice President also appeared to be.
- [04:04]
Dan Senor
Supportive of and sympathetic to Israel's concerns and about any future role in Gaza for Turkey. President Trump has been mounting public pressure on Hamas to seize violence against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and adhere to the terms of the ceasefire. He told reporters at the White House that if Hamas does not behave, quote, we're going to eradicate them. While President Trump advances his plan for Gaza, he is set to welcome Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to the White House in mid November, during which the President is expected to push for Israel Saudi normalization. While MbS will we expect request security guarantees from the US now on to today's conversation. We are joined by Israeli journalist and call me back veteran Ronen Bergman. Ronen is currently working on a book with a colleague from the New York Times, Mark Mazzetti about the years, in fact decades leading up to October 7th and that book should be published within about a year. Ronan recently co wrote a piece for the New York Times titled A Memo in a Intercepted communications and Hamas October 7th plans in which he and his co author Adam Raskon discuss a recently uncovered six page memo which Israeli officials believe was written by October 7th architect Yehya Sinwar with instructions and very specific instructions for the October 7th assault and massacre. The memo is dated August 24th, 2022 and may grant us additional insight into what Hamas hoped to achieve in launching the October 7th war. Before we start the conversation, I just wanted to flag for our listeners that some of the details that we will be discussing this episode as they were revealed by these memos are pretty graphic about the horrific and bloody events of October 7th. So just wanted to warn listeners in advance. But first a word from our sponsor.
- [06:08]
Sponsor Representative
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- [07:11]
Dan Senor
WarriorCare.
- [07:12]
Sponsor Representative
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- [07:15]
Dan Senor
Someone find their way back.
- [07:17]
Ilan Benatar
And I'm pleased to welcome back to.
- [07:18]
Dan Senor
The podcast Ronen Bergman. Ronen, good to see you.
- [07:22]
Ronen Bergman
Hi Dan, good to see you.
- [07:23]
Ilan Benatar
Ronen, you obtained and reported on the.
- [07:28]
Dan Senor
Hamas protocols documents that the IDF had.
- [07:30]
Ilan Benatar
Seized after Sinwar was killed.
- [07:34]
Dan Senor
Those documents are the recorded minutes of 10 secretly held meetings in which Hamas.
- [07:39]
Ilan Benatar
Leaders had planned the October 7 attacks. As we understand these documents, but I want to go right to the news.
- [07:45]
Dan Senor
Here which is last week you obtained and reported on a new document captured by the IDF which was handwritten by Sinwar.
- [07:52]
Ilan Benatar
So I just want to start with the most recent news you telling me.
- [07:55]
Dan Senor
About the discovery of this document and what was in it.
- [07:58]
Ronen Bergman
So together with my great colleague Adam Raskow, we revealed in the story in the New York Times basically two new sources that shed new light and give us a much better understanding of the decision making process prior to the attack of October 7th and the execution of that decision making process. Now we have seen many, many, many of these horrible atrocities executed by Hamas and it was clear that such atrocities that are taking place in different scenes at the same time over the border inside Israeli communities, the result of some order coming from Hamas from the organizational level. But this document, the Sinoa written memo, is the first identification of the order itself coming from the supreme commander of Hamas and it was found recently. It was found in late June in the tunnel under the American hospital in Khan Younis. This is where the brother of Sinuar Muhammad Sinoar was hiding. He was killed there by an Israeli operation and after killing him Israeli commandos raided that tunnel and they brought throves of documents and computer records. In these computer records they found parts of the Yihisinoar archive and there are many, many interesting documents and records over there. But the most important, I think historically most important is a six pages handwritten memoir from Ye Sinwar from August 2022.
- [09:46]
Ilan Benatar
There's a tendency to think of Hamas as this ragtag militia, the way we.
- [09:50]
Ronen Bergman
Think Kalachnikov said the sleepers, right.
- [09:53]
Ilan Benatar
But in fact, you know, since Gaza disengagement in 2005, but really after, certainly after Sinwar returns to Gaza after being.
- [10:02]
Dan Senor
Released from the Israeli prison in 2011.
- [10:05]
Ilan Benatar
You start to see this transformation of Hamas and this real modernization and professionalization of Hama as a military organization to the point that it's like a light infantry force of a sovereign nation. And therefore these are professionally drafted, organized documents that are really used the way in any military organization. Written communications are used to document planning, document principles, goals for purposes of internal communications and internal dissemination. It really is like a professional process. It's not just like some guy jotting down his thoughts like for in his journal.
- [10:39]
Ronen Bergman
It's even much more than that. You know, I have some idea of how intelligence communities write documents, memos, producing records of sorts, military infrastructures. I know a little bit about how American companies work and how many documents or memos or reports. I have never seen an organization that is so obsessive with writing documents, reports, memos, minutes, protocols. Really never seen anything like that. For everything, they produce an Excel sheet. Every battalion commander every week needs to report how many bullets he has left, even during battle. And they have invested so much work into documenting everything that when Israel invaded Gaza during the war, it recreated the unit that was disbanded long ago after people thought that there will not be any such war anymore. And these are special operatives that are going into the battlefield to search for documents, for computer records. And they brought back from Gaza 80 petabytes of information which explain what that is. We're talking about something like 10 million pages and 40 years of video. And this is the biggest throve of records on terrorism I think ever created. It's much, much, much larger than the Al Qaeda files that were seized by the U.S. or any other kind of terrorist organization archive. And what we see inside them is basically we now know so much on what was the decision making process, how they prepared themselves, the deception and others and the whole chain of events, including that document. When Sinuar getting ready to attack in 2022, he takes the war plan and he writes his own comments and orders, additions to the war plan, to the attack plan.
- [12:43]
Ilan Benatar
How do we know it was Sinwar's handwriting?
- [12:45]
Ronen Bergman
So the Israeli military has samples of handwriting from all the Hamas seniors. They use computers, et cetera. But we do our own vetting and we matched the Sinwa's handwriting. An expert helped us with vast, vast experience as Working in police, forensic labs, vast experience with handwritings in Arabic, which needs special expertise. This was written in August 2022, and in the meeting of the Supreme Military Council of Hamas, which is the highest, most secretive forum where they decided on the planning and the execution of the attack. They write Abu Ibrahim, the nickname for Sinwar. Abu Ibrahim reviewed the attack plan and wrote his comments, and they were found in totally different places. So we have a perfect overlap. And of course, more than anything else, what he says, what he orders in that memo, unfortunately, tragically, is being executed on October 7th in the battlefield.
- [13:51]
Ilan Benatar
Okay, so what was the directive in the document?
- [13:54]
Ronen Bergman
So the directive in the document, there's a lot of military maneuvering and others tactical, but the most important appears in the first few graphs of these six pages. Do you want me to actually read from the document?
- [14:08]
Ilan Benatar
Yeah, go ahead.
- [14:10]
Ronen Bergman
So on the third graph of this memo titled Under Horrific Events and Images, Sinua writes, events must be planned in advance from which horrific images will emerge. Several burning car bombs that will explode at the post or building and create terrifying destruction, heartbreaking sights, a terrible fire, five or even 10 images will instill mortal fear in them. So their enemy, the Israelis. And then the quote from the Quran, and then he says two or three operations must be organized whose purpose is the burning of an entire neighborhood or kibbutz and the like. They will pour fuel or diesel from a special tanker, burn the place, and broadcast the images. And then he goes to explain what's the purpose of doing that, Dealing with stabbing, with decapitating bodies. And more important for him is the documenting of this and injecting it into social media.
- [15:15]
Ilan Benatar
You listen to hundreds of hours of.
- [15:17]
Dan Senor
Hamas intercepted radio communications that were recorded.
- [15:21]
Ilan Benatar
On October 7 by Shmona Matayim, which is the unit 8200. In what way do those intercepts?
- [15:28]
Dan Senor
You've listened to Hamas talking to Hamas as they're executing October 7th.
- [15:34]
Ilan Benatar
In what way do those intercepts echo Sinwar's directive, Sinwar's memo?
- [15:38]
Ronen Bergman
And just to explain that, so there's like the top commanders, even medium level commanders did not invade Israel. They stayed behind. So it's like sort of the opposite from being ahead of the forces. And the Hamas terrorists are inside Israel and they have tactical wireless Okie Toki to speak with their commanders on many, many, many channels. And a 200 recorded that. And what you see is the exact execution. So the commanders are telling them, burn this or behead civilians or soldiers and document, do this on video. I just don't want to get into horrible description but there's something horrible, horrible that they are doing.
- [16:23]
Ilan Benatar
Can you describe it without getting too graphically detailed, just so people can understand.
- [16:27]
Ronen Bergman
It's the terrible humiliation and mutilation of bodies of soldiers and civilians. And in one case the commander in Gaza understands that they did not shoot this on video and he sends them back to do this again and shoot this on video. There's even like a sort of a pocket guide to the Nukhba, how to take a video and then inject that into the social media as soon as possible. And I think that the Israeli public started to see them around 15 past 8 o' clock in the morning. So the raid, the attack started a little bit before 6:30. So less than two hours afterwards, the Israeli social media started, already started to be flooded with the most horrible, horrible scenes. And I think you won't be finding any Israel Israeli who wouldn't say at the beginning I thought it's a hoax, I thought it's fabrication.
- [17:21]
Ilan Benatar
There are very specific orders about bringing back heads, literally the heads of Israelis, very specific orders about burning communities. I also think there's a tendency when you watch either the images that we.
- [17:32]
Dan Senor
All saw on television or on the.
- [17:33]
Ilan Benatar
Internet, or you watch the, as many of us have that 40 plus minute video, there's an element to this that looks improvisational, like these wild terrorists are these young men drugged up, going crazy, just acting wild and at their own initiative. I think what your reporting reveals is all of this was very specific. No one was just improvising, Right? So can you talk a little bit about that? How the specific commands in terms of how to do what to do, as.
- [18:01]
Ronen Bergman
We saw in what Sinoar wrote, they were planning on few specific occasions throughout the front where they do the burning, bringing gasoline or diesel or any other burning material in order to set everything on fire. The question whether this was a coincidence or not is of course answered by the fact that not just SINOA order that, but the commanders in Gaza say, do not forget to put this on video. Do not forget, bring me a head as a souvenir. Stamping on bodies, stamping on heads. And the reference, unlike Hamas denial afterwards, all of it is about civilians and soldiers. Hamas afterwards said this was only against Israeli soldiers. And if civilians were killed, this was just by sort of mistakes or the infiltrators that came after, or maybe they chased soldiers that ran into the communities. You understand very clearly from the intercepts that they asked the commanders here we have just civilian cars on the road, 232, and they get the Answer, kill all of them or kidnap, bring to Gaza these civilians or we are burning dead kibbutz. Things are very, very clear, premeditated, pre planned and they are following the plan. It doesn't mean that the infiltrators, so civilians who came from Gaza afterwards did not do horrific acts. But it's clear that there is a plan. And the plan, not just the invasion, not just the surprise, not just the deception, not just attacking military posts. The plan is around the abduction and killing of civilians and the execution of, I would say extreme brutality, I don't know other words to describe these things and document them and send them over the social media for the world to, to see.
- [20:01]
Ilan Benatar
Okay, so one of the questions many people were asking that day was what the hell was he thinking, Sinwar, meaning how on earth would these atrocities and broadcasting these atrocities, how on earth would these serve the Palestinian cause? Because the comparison, many made, me included, was to the Nazi genocide, industrial scale slaughtering of Jews. The Nazis went to extraordinary lengths to disguise it, to hide it, to make sure the world didn't learn about it. And this seemed to be the opposite. So based on all the documents that have been uncovered and what you have seen, what do you think Sinwar was thinking with this strategy?
- [20:42]
Ronen Bergman
Sinwar is not here to answer questions, but we do have many documents. I cannot say that they all give one clear answer. It may be all of them together, but these are Hamas supreme military command documents and Sinuar's handwritten note. And he's writing the answer. Well, to say three answers to explain why ordering these acts of extreme brutality, documenting them and sending them over social media. And he says we have three targets to this part of the attack. One is to instill terror, hysteria and massive fear in the hearts and minds of all Israelis. So to create some kind of a collective shell shock, he said it would be enough to break the self confidence of the Israelis to let them feel unsafe at their home, even if their home is not by the Gaza Strip. Second, he says we need to create enthusiasm and motivation among the Arabs in Israel, Palestinians in Israel and the Palestinians in the West Bank. Now just bear in mind he wrote this in August 22nd. This is a year and few months after Guardians of the World War confrontation with Israel.
- [22:07]
Ilan Benatar
That war was May of 21, right?
- [22:09]
Ronen Bergman
Yes. And in that war they created uprising and riots among Arabs in Israel and in the West Bank.
- [22:18]
Ilan Benatar
Okay, so May of 21, there's an 11 day war approximately between Israel and Hamas. One of the unique features of that war, relative to previous Israel Hamas wars was that the Israeli Arab community for the first time started to protest. I mean, more than protest. There were riots in many of these joint Jewish Arab towns. And you're saying that one of the things Hamas realized is we have the capacity to first of all, have the west bank join the fight and stir uprising from within Israel. And now you're saying that all this documentation and broadcasting was in part an effort to provoke Israeli Arabs inside Israel to join the fight, but it seems to have had the opposite effect.
- [23:00]
Ronen Bergman
Well, it's not just documenting these horrible acts, but also explode tanks, show the terrorists of Hamas inside Israeli communities. It shows success. If I think I would come to anyone in the world on October 6, 2023, and I would say, look, tomorrow you'll see such acts or such invasion into Israel successfully, nobody would believe they need this to make them believe that this is possible. Now, this is perfectly synchronized with recorded speech from the top military commander of Hamas, Muhammaddev, who says to the Arabs in Israel and the Palestinians in the west bank, everyone should take a knife or take an axe and go and kill Jews. And immediately afterwards, you have recorded speeches by leaders of Hamas in Al Jazeera, basically saying the same. And a recorded speech from Abu Ubaidah, the famous spokesperson for Hamas. So we have a coordinated effort. Now, the ability to ignite what he called the internal front was one achievement that Sinwar had from the May 21 war. The other achievement was that the axis of resistance, the Jabal Mukawama. So Iran and Hezbollah, they started to see Hamas not as a small partner, colleague that needs financial help, but as a very potent ally that they should treat in a different way. We said one target was to instill fear and terror in the hearts of the Israelis. The other one is to ignite the internal front. And the third one, maybe the most important, that Sinwar and his lieutenants devoted so much to was to convince Iran and Hezbollah to go to war with them. This is the main thing, because in May 22, just a few months before, this was written in a meeting of the small military council. This is the small, secretive forum that he established in order to plan how to go to that attack. He says, if we attack, we won't be able to take down the Gaza division, the Israeli Gaza Division, and cause a lot of damage. But we should not confuse ourselves, because our goal is to eradicate the state of Israel. And if we are able to convince the front, the Axis, to join us, we might be able to destroy the Jewish state or at least withdraw it decades to the past. So his hope is that once his partners the Axis, so mainly Hezbollah and Iran, once they see the images that he is successful, they would like to join in. And on page three of that memo he says we should prepare ourselves that Hezbollah joins and we will go to the ultimate attack. We go for the whole of Israel, to destroy Israel. This was the ultimate goal.
- [26:04]
Ilan Benatar
By broadcasting the Hamas atrocities, though we now know, unlike in 2021, Sinwar failed to activate Israeli Arabs. In fact, they seemed they did express solidarity with Israel after October 7th. And he failed to fully activate at least Hezbollah and Iran, at least in the immediate days and the West Bank. And he failed to activate the West Bank. So what did he misjudge there?
- [26:29]
Ronen Bergman
So first, if it's just about the first target. So to instill fear and lack of self confidence in the hearts of the Israelis, I think he was analyzing or forecasting. Right. Because to an extent, regretfully, it was successful. It's a collective post traumatic situation. People went to sleep hundreds of kilometers from Gaza, went to sleep with knives because they dreamt that the Nukhba is coming to slaughter them. It brought back the fears of the Holocaust, existential threats. It broke this unwritten contract with the state and the people that this is the state of the Jews and the country will defend them. And so to that extent, I think he was right. What he got totally wrong was that he thought Hezbollah would join. And they joined at first on a very low level. So sort of like paying the Rebbe guilt because they promised him before they don't join him that day, but they might support him if he. So this was the minimum. He got only the minimum. And few days after, when he saw that he's getting only the minimum, he start cursing Nasrallah. He used horrible, horrible words for not doing more. And I think that to an extent it had the opposite effect on Arabs in Israel and Palestinians in the west bank because they just didn't want anything to do with what they broadcast from there. You know, at the. They abducted women and little children and the parts of the leaders of the Axis or Iran, al Hezbollah, they were convinced that this is just an Israeli fabrication, that they kidnapped children.
- [28:08]
Ilan Benatar
Meaning they thought that like if it were true, it would be Hamas going too far.
- [28:12]
Ronen Bergman
Yeah, but they didn't believe. They thought it's Israelis fabricating this. And then when Hamas released them in the first deal in November 23rd, they were shocked. They said they really did kidnap children. Like, so they sort of thought of Hamas as savages. They thought that this is too Much. Now, again, if he was calculating right, then he had a lot to lose. And at the end, of course, he miscalculated. And I'm sure that if he would be alive or if he would be seeing that all of this is coming, he might have second thoughts. But he also knew that this can be happening only once, and he wanted to do everything for that day to be successful.
- [28:54]
Ilan Benatar
There's one area where he was successful, which was in activating the West. I hate to say this, it's so hard for me to say, but I'm just going to say it. Activating Hamas's support cells or sympathizers in the West. Internationally, he flipped the script. Sinwar basically shackled tens of thousands of Palestinians, civilians, to the train track and then fooled the world into blaming the train, which is Israel, which is Israel's response. He completely flipped the narrative and drew this international outrage, which ultimately resulted in diplomatic isolation, some economic isolation, and this demonization of Israel. Was that part of what he was trying to accomplish too, or that just kind of worked out in a way.
- [29:41]
Dan Senor
That he may not have planned for?
- [29:43]
Ronen Bergman
So in one meeting before the execution of the attack, someone is asking him, and what would happen if 30,000 Palestinians will be killed when Israel responds to this attack? And he says, well, imagine that there is an earthquake in Gaza and 30,000 are dead because of the earthquake. What is this compared to the holy jihad? So there are thoughts that this is sacrifice, that the Palestinian people will sacrifice, and that this will lead to some kind of re emerging of the Palestinian issue on the world stage. And you quoted the essay by Ilhan Benatar.
- [30:26]
Ilan Benatar
We'll link to this in the show notes. Ilan wrote this piece for medium soon after October 7th about the flipping of.
- [30:32]
Ronen Bergman
The script that basically says that this was not a miscalculation, meaning that the Israeli response was not a miscalculation. It was the feature of the plan.
- [30:40]
Ilan Benatar
Hamas wanted this response.
- [30:42]
Ronen Bergman
Yeah. And so there's no vetting inside the protocols. There's nothing against that. But the New York Times had an interview with leaders of Hamas immediately after the attack. November, late October, November 23rd. And my colleague Ben Hubbard is asking Khalil Al Khayya, so the deputy of Sinua that he dispatched to Doha shortly before the attack, and now is the leader of Hamas, the one that was targeted in Doha by Israeli air Force. And he asks him, you miscalculated. And Khalilu Chaya answers, no, we did not. We knew that if we do something big, the reaction would be big. We knew that this is a sacrifice that needs to be sacrificed. Of course they didn't ask the Palestinian people before they did that if they're willing to make that sacrifice. But he says we are Hamas, we are Jihad, we are Qassam. We are not in charge of supplying the sewage, the health and the electricity services to the Gazans. It's not our job. We are in charge of Jihad and our purpose was to create a multi front war against Israel, regional war that will not just make the Israelis stay awake at night, but will make everybody in the Middle east not sleep another night peacefully again until the Palestinian issue is solved according to their version. So he says this is all pre planned, but I think the possible calculation of them would be that Israel would go to major offense and that as long as they hold tight in the tunnels at the end the world would put enough pressure on Israel and the whole thing will end in the same place that all rounds of hostilities and fights with Hamas ended. So Hamas stays, they have hostages, they can free the prisoners and Israel cannot continue its fighting.
- [32:36]
Sponsor Representative
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- [32:38]
Dan Senor
Word from our sponsor.
- [32:40]
Sponsor Representative
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- [33:38]
Dan Senor
Someone find their way back.
- [33:40]
Ilan Benatar
Ronan, let's go back to the 10.
- [33:41]
Dan Senor
Hamas protocols that were obtained by the IDF.
- [33:45]
Ilan Benatar
Again remind us when that document was discovered by the idf. What are these documents and the time period they covered?
- [33:51]
Ronen Bergman
On 31 January 2024, Israeli commandos entered a tunnel under Khan Yunus where Sinuar was hiding until few hours before. In the drawing, the map that they prepared for this tunnel, there's something called room six. This is where Sinuar and his family and his bodyguards and a big metal safe were located. And Sinwar he heard in Israeli television. Sinwar had a habit to stop everything his Daily routine every day at five minutes to eight in the evening. Because he was addicted to see Channel 12 news every day, every night in.
- [34:34]
Ilan Benatar
Israel, every night except for Shabbat, 8pm news on Channel 12. It's must watch for Israelis, many Israelis. And your point, Ronen, is that among its audience was Sinwar. He was religiously loyal to watching the Channel 12 news because he wanted to keep his finger on the pulse. He's a fluent Hebrew speaker. Was he wanted to keep his finger on the pulse of where the Israeli dialogue was going.
- [34:57]
Ronen Bergman
Yeah. And he believed that Channel 12 represent the widest consensus among Israeli society that he needs to understand. So in one of the news shows date, he heard that massive bulletproof bulldozers called D9 are hammering above his head in order to get and capture Sinuar. He was the number one wanted the mastermind of October 7th an attack. And he thought that this is odd because he did hear hammering above his head. And then he thought, well, maybe if they are drilling above my head and they know that they are drilling above my head, maybe they know where I am. So he picked up his bodyguards and his family and they ran away as soon as they could. Few hours before the disappointed Israeli commandos raided that hive of tunnels. So they didn't find Sinar, but they did find a safe with 4 million shekels in cash.
- [35:46]
Ilan Benatar
This is over a million dollars in cash basically, but in shekels. So 4 million.
- [35:50]
Ronen Bergman
Yes. And they found a laptop. Air gapped laptops were not connected to the Internet, which is one of the most common ways that Hamas stored their massive archives. They print or they write, then they scan and then they store them on air gapped computers, believing that Israeli intelligence that is super understanding the cyber hemisphere cannot penetrate something that is not connected to the net. Unfortunately, in most cases they were right. The documents that we now have were not in the possession of Israeli intelligence before that. This is a major collection flaw. And in that computer they found what I believe is the most important, historically important documents of the war. These are 10 protocols of 10 meetings of the small military council of Hamas, the highest supreme military decision making forum starting July 21st. And the last one is August 23rd. And later they found the last protocol, two days from two days before the war. And you see the planning, you see the deliberations, you see the targets, and you see an ongoing attempt by Sinwar and Mohammedev to get and convince the Hezbollah in Iran so the axis of resistance to join them on the attack.
- [37:19]
Ilan Benatar
And to deceive Israel about Hamas's True intentions. During this entire time period while preparing for the assault, I had some sometimes.
- [37:28]
Ronen Bergman
High tone discussions or interviews with sources and people from the military who said there's no strategic deception here. I think many Israelis that were high ranking officials on October 7, there are many of them who are taking responsibility, who said we did wrong, we made mistakes, among others, it's our responsibility. But most of them have really found it difficult to admit that the underside deceived them. It's easier for them to say it's a conception, we tricked ourselves, we made a mistake, it's settling it in our court. But what we see is the planning of massive strategic deception. They say we do not get into the fights between Israel and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. We don't do anything following what they call the provocation of Itama Benvir in the holy mountain. We don't get into small conflicts, military conflicts, and we give the Israelis the sense that we are into calmness, we want to settle, we are taking the money from Qatar and this will convince the Israelis that we are not up to launch such a major assault.
- [38:44]
Ilan Benatar
So Hamas initially planned to carry out the attack in the fall of 22. Yeah, they obviously changed their plans.
- [38:51]
Sponsor Representative
Why?
- [38:53]
Ronen Bergman
So they're looking at basically two occasions every year. One is Pesach, the other one is Hagay T? Shoi, the high holidays. They had the ongoing surveillance what is happening in the Gaza front, how many tanks, how many soldiers, taking everything that any Israeli soldier put on social media and compiling quite a striking understanding of what the IDF is doing and how it's protecting and what are the best opportunities to to strike is either Pesach or one of Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur or Sukkot afterwards. They are not fully ready in April 22, but they are reaching readiness in September of 22. This is when Sinua is writing this memo. This is like his last orders to the overall attack plan. And then they decide not to attack. Though they are, they feel that they are in the highest level of readiness. It's not written specifically, but we understand that he still gives a chance to be able to convince Hezbollah and Iran to join him. So from high holidays of 22 throughout the coming year, they invested massive efforts. They had two senior envoys traveling shuttling between Qatar, Lebanon, Tehran, Gaza. One of them is Ismail Haniya, who was the political leader of Hamas back then, was killed by Israel later. The other one is Khalil Khayya Abu Osama, who is now the leader of Hamas and was the deputy of Sinwar and he is sent to speak with Hezbollah and with Iran, with Mohammad Izadi, the PoC with the Quds Force. And tell him, listen, we are going to attack and we need your help. So Iran's and Hezbollah help to attack at the same day and help us with specific even he gives even specific targets and specific aid they need on aerial bombardment, et cetera. And he keeps on doing that. And he fails in 22 and he fails again in 23, fails to recruit them to this. They say we are all with you, we are planning it, we have our own plan to have a multi front six front attack synchronized the same day against Israel to eradicate the state of the Jews. But we are not yet ready. And in 22 he decides to delay. And in 23 he decides not to delay. He feels that this is his last chance.
- [41:26]
Ilan Benatar
And why does he think it's his last chance?
- [41:29]
Ronen Bergman
He thinks first of all, he believes the announcement from the Israeli Ministry of Defense that the laser, the laser interceptors are going to be ready in 2024. He believes that this will significantly reduce his ability to bomb Israeli communities. And the other one, he believes that the defragmentation of the Israeli society and every and all the judicial overhaul and the protest and all of that, he believes this could be a good time. He gets his military intelligence to assess the readiness level of Israeli forces on the border. And they tell him, listen, in spite of everything that we see in Israel, the level of preparedness was not damaged. And also we advise you not to attack the Israelis, especially in this kind of time. The Israelis are expected to react with even more massive stronger force against you. And he doesn't take this advice and they decide to attack and they believe that Simchat Torah, the last holiday, is their Last chance in 2023 and otherwise they need to delay the year. Then they might be a laser or the political circumst are going to be different and they go for the attack.
- [42:48]
Ilan Benatar
To what degree were Hamas's political leaders.
- [42:51]
Dan Senor
In Qatar informed of the plan?
- [42:54]
Ilan Benatar
Meaning what was the dynamic between Hamas.
- [42:56]
Dan Senor
Doha and Hamas Gaza?
- [42:59]
Ronen Bergman
What is very strongly substantiated in the protocols is that this whole claims that there is like a political bureau Doha that is not aware what is happening in Gaza, that sometimes in contradictive or that is more moderate, that is not involved in the military activity. It's all false. Not just Ismail Haniyeh was aware of what they call a Mashrul Kabir, the big plan. That's the code name for the attack his son was involved in. That they have encrypted video communication conferences between Doha and Gaza where they announced them. And in a specific moment in the last protocol, the Last of the 10 in August 23rd, they say we informed the Rais Al Haraka. So Ismail Haniyyah, they informed him. This is for history. We informed him. And then they say by informing him we see a consent. So basically they say that I'm telling you that I'm going to do something horrible tomorrow. I'm telling you this, I don't give you even the time to react, but I'm noting to myself the fact that I told you means that you agree. And I think they wanted sort of to put themselves in the right place, that it was not just their decision because they understood the historical magnitude of that day, but in the previous two years. Haniyeh is going to speak with the Iranians and telling them about the Great Plan. And he's speaking with Nasrallah and telling him about that. So the front is aware. Haniyeh is in the loop. He knows everything and he knows about the date. Sinua wanted to ignite regional war. He failed at the beginning. Nasrallahidely on a very low level, followed and created some military friction with Israel that had Israel to split its forces. But at the end, even he was not alive anymore. He was successful. He was able to ignite regional war. What he did not see is of course what Israel did in Gaza and the Israeli success against the other part of the axis, against Hezbollah and Iran. And so while this is the tail that winged the dog. And he was successful in that he ignited regional war, it ended with the total collapse of the eastern hemisphere of this radical axis.
- [45:22]
Ilan Benatar
Yeah, he ignited a regional war which he was successful in, but it was a war that Israel won.
- [45:27]
Ronen Bergman
Exactly.
- [45:28]
Ilan Benatar
Which was not part of his plan.
- [45:29]
Ronen Bergman
He saw the Israelis in constant friction. You know, all the every two years they had a round of hostilities, they perfected themselves. They were much more success in preventing Israeli infiltration. We talked about this in one of the episodes in the past in preventing Israel from recruiting agents, etc. He saw his success. He didn't understand that Israel didn't have the same kind of friction with Hezbollah. So Hezbollah didn't understand how deeply Israel penetrated its ranks. He thought that it's going to be the same and he was encouraged by his success, but he didn't see the picture. And of course he basically afterwards, Nasrallah and Khamenei did the same strategic mistakes when thinking that Israel would not surprise them with all out attack they had the same conception and died while.
- [46:17]
Ilan Benatar
Yeah. So I want to go back to Sinwar's stated goals. So just create a regional war that.
- [46:22]
Dan Senor
You talked about that Israel ultimately won.
- [46:24]
Ilan Benatar
And then also, was he explicit about disrupting Saudi normalization with Israel?
- [46:28]
Ronen Bergman
Yeah. And one of the protocols, they say that this is the Saudi. I think they call it Muabara. So conspiracy, they say this is a conspiracy to take the Palestinian issue off the table of the world forever. And this is one of the things that they see as threat. And they want to reintroduce the Palestinian topic and not let anyone sleep peacefully at night until this is done. Now, there's also the question of the prisoners. This is extremely important because Sinwar told the families of the prisoners. The Palestinian prisoners.
- [47:04]
Ilan Benatar
Of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons.
- [47:06]
Ronen Bergman
Yeah. Some of them his comrades from the same cell for decades. He promised that he will release them. You know, Sinuar tried to sabotage the Shalit deal. The deal that. Yeah.
- [47:19]
Dan Senor
That got him released.
- [47:20]
Ronen Bergman
Yeah, yeah. Because he was afraid that this will sort of tarnish his image as it's called, Amir Al Asra. So the king or the emir of the prison. And suddenly you are being released and you leave your comrades behind. And, you know, Hamas, throughout that decade, previous decade, had, from 2014, had two bodies of Israeli soldiers and two live Israelis that found their ways to Hamas captivity. But Sinua told everybody that he has two Israeli live soldiers, and he will be able to replace the live soldiers for the prisoners, the heavy prisoners. They got 1,000 Palestinian prisoners for Shalit. Here you have four live Israelis, he claimed, so you get all of them. And Israel knew that the two soldiers are not alive. It was sensitive to admit to some extent, but Israel knew the truth, and they knew that Sinuar knows the truth, but he's lying to his own people. But then years passed, and he's not fulfilling what he promised. And he has, you know, the families of the prisoners, some of them from the 80s in Israeli prisons in harsh conditions, and he's under pressure. So it's a combination of things. But I think that above all, as we see from his writings and his behavior as time passes, he is no longer just a religious follower of Allah's orders, but he believes more and more that he has a duty in that theater, that he's not just a believer, he is not part of many, but he is the one that needs to execute Allah's order by himself based on.
- [49:04]
Dan Senor
These goals that we now know. Sinwar's plan completely failed. And yet in many corners of the.
- [49:12]
Ilan Benatar
World, there's this perception that Hamas was successful. Why do you think that is?
- [49:17]
Ronen Bergman
Some of the things that he predicted maybe as a tactic to achieve a much bigger goal, so to instill fear in many Israelis hearts and minds, breaking self confidence in that he was successful. And Israelis know every Israeli who was here, he knows what I'm talking about. And it's yet to be seen in years of researches and psychological examinations. What are the result of that? People who saw the video, some of them, you cannot do an undo to a video that you saw and to many people. And I've spent the first six months of the war, except for the battlefield in Gaza, I spent the nights watching the videos because of the research that we have done with them. And I didn't let anyone get close to them or to my room. Nobody was allowed in because I was afraid that this will harm someone's heart, someone's soul. And it's really horrible. So on that scale, I think he was successful. And I think that people saw the shock of the Israeli defeat that day of that specific battle on October 7th was in many cases left such an impression on many people around the world that they failed to see what happened after and how these are connected. Because what happened with Hezbollah, with Iran is not disconnected. It's the result of that. Everything is a result of October 7th. This is the watershed moment that changed everything. And also the next phase. What would happen in the next phase in Gaza? I think that historians will see this as the judgment Gaza, of course, militarily, Israel won, but it's not just the counting of bodies of Hamas terrorists, but it's also what will happen at the end, because Hamas were, as he said. So if 30,000 people are dying in an earthquake, what is this compared to jihad? If he's willing to sacrifice 30, then he's willing to sacrifice more. Sadat said, And I think he really meant that before the October 6th war, 1973, that he's willing to sacrifice 1 million.
- [51:30]
Dan Senor
Anwar Sadat.
- [51:31]
Ronen Bergman
Anwar Sadat, the president of Egypt. And in this kind of dictatorship, tyranny regime, if you are the person who is in control, you can make such a decision. So I think he, he was willing to do that. And how this ends, you know, one of the previous rounds of small scale war with Hamas ended with what Israel saw as a victory. The guardians of the wall in May 21st. And then you get a picture of Sinwar on the ruins of his house, sitting on a couch. So there's only one couch, all the rest is totally ruined. But Sinoar is sitting on a couch and he's smiling. That means that he is still in control. He is still standing. Now Sinoar cannot stand. He will not stand anywhere ever. But the next month will be seen as crucial for historians how this is going to unfold. Where is this going to end? It's not yet the end of it.
- [52:25]
Ilan Benatar
All right, Ronan, this was a tour de force. Thank you for taking us through this. We will leave it there.
- [52:31]
Dan Senor
And I agree with you. The story's not over. Which is partly why this conversation and the ones going forward are not over. There's still a lot to understand and to make sense of, and we'll look forward to having you back as we continue to try to navigate through this.
- [52:47]
Ronen Bergman
Yeah. But we need to remember that we are speaking now. This is the first episode I'm here with you speaking after the release of 20 live Israeli hostages. And I said to you before that there will not be a page turner to a better future of this region before they are released. It's so such a wonderful news, Yana. My wife and I had many of the parents and family members of hostages coming to a place to ask for advice, to ask for. They were so sad and traumatized and miserable and felt such in confidence with what the administration was telling them. And every time they left, Yana and I looked at ourselves and said, what are the chances that this mother or father or brother will ever see their family member, son, child ever again? And there's some happy note that they came back.
- [53:46]
Ilan Benatar
Yeah.
- [53:47]
Ronen Bergman
This is just so great. And I hope that this will be the page turner to a better day for this region, for us, for us all.
- [53:54]
Dan Senor
Thank you for that.
- [53:55]
Ilan Benatar
That's right. It's the first episode you've been on since the deal, so hopefully you continue to return on high notes.
- [54:01]
Ronen Bergman
Thanks, dad.
- [54:11]
Dan Senor
Call me back is produced and edited by Ilan Benatar. Arc Media's executive producer is Adam James Levin Aretti. Sound and video editing by Martin. Martin Huergo and Marianchalis Burgos. Our director of operations, Maya Rockoff. Research by Gabe Silverstein. Our music was composed by Yuval Semo. Until next time, I'm your host, Dan Senor.