To go to the ground.
I want
to turn to someone who is right now
fighting on the front lines of this war.
Joining me
now is IDF soldier Rudy Rockman.
Rudy, you are quite literally,
as we can see there in your picture.
You are called now to duty.
What have the last few days
been like for you on the ground
and where you are in Israel,
which, by the way, I should say
we are not specifically naming
just for security reasons as well.
Yeah. Thank you for having me.
I mean, it's been almost a week
since this started.
And as a reservist,
I've been out of the Army
for over ten years.
I'm a civilian.
I've done my degrees,
I've work, I have families.
And all of a sudden on Saturday morning,
it was Shabbat and it was so quiet.
It was the holiday for the Jewish people.
We get called up
and we started seeing these videos
of what had taken place in the morning
and our entire unit
got deployed to Vaasa,
which is a village on the border of Gaza,
which had some of the most horrendous
massacres.
And unfortunately,
we were there for four days
rescuing the remaining civilians
that remained.
But when we got there, it was a massacre.
We saw
bodies of men, women,
children, elderly, elderly,
cut up into pieces.
The most gruesome images
you can ever imagine.
And it was very unfortunate
to see those things.
But thankfully,
we were able to secure the area.
And since then, we're ready
to be deployed to the next location.
As you
prepare for what this
next phase of the war looks like,
Israeli officials have been pretty clear
that the plan
right now,
the objective is to wipe out Hamas.
But I wonder,
do you think that that will require
street by street fighting?
And are you
personally prepared
for what that would mean?
I mean, the entire army has been prepared
for this war.
Hamas goal
from the very beginning has been
to eliminate the Jewish people
and to eliminate Israel.
It's actually been in their constitution
when they built
their government
saying that they need
to eliminate the Jews,
not only in Israel,
but in entire the world.
So when you give a terrorist organization
like that
weapons to go and fulfill their goals,
we know what that looks like,
whether it's for Hamas,
the Palestinian Authority or Hezbollah
or all these different groups
that are actually oppressing its peoples
and don't actually
represents its peoples.
If you speak to Palestinians
on the ground,
whether in Judea and Samaria,
the West
Bank or in Gaza, they do not like Hamas,
they do not like
the Palestinian Authority.
They're on their,
what, 20th year of their four year term.
These are oppressive
regimes
that are controlling their people
and not only attacking Israeli civilians.
The forcing Palestinians
to also be caught into this conflict.
Israelis do not want to see
either Israelis die or Palestinians die.
The majority of us are innocents,
and this is not a war between the people.
Let me make it clear
the Jews are not fighting the Muslims
and the Israelis
are not fighting Palestinians.
We're fighting Hamas,
which is oppressing
both Israelis and Palestinians.
Are we ready?
We are ready.
But we also need to
not only look at the what is happening,
we need to understand
why it is happening.
And this really started with the West
pushing narratives of dividing
Israelis and Palestinians.
The reality is that there is no future
without Palestinians
and without Israelis.
Neither of us are going to disappear.
So I hope that when this settles,
we can learn from this entrance
on this conflict together.
It's an important point.
And and I think so
many people share your hope that
that if there is an end to this,
hopefully there is
that It's one
that is obviously a lot more peaceful.
But as we sit here,
there's so much concern
right now about the 1 million
or so Palestinians
who are being
told to flee
the northern part of Gaza right now.
I've noted that you've observed
in the past that Hamas uses civilian
casualties of Palestine
as a propaganda tool.
But are you worried that this operation
carried out by by Israel
could ultimately play into Hamas's hands
if those civilians
are not able to evacuate
and many of them end up killed?
Absolutely.
I don't want to see any civilian killed.
You know, for me, you're
you're you're a foreigner.
You know, your fellow human being.
But for me, Palestinians are my cousins.
They're my family.
So I don't want to see
any Palestinians killed.
And I'm glad that they have at
least 24 hours to be able to evacuate.
Israelis have less than 24 seconds
to be able to evacuate
when they're being fired on.
But when you look at people in Gaza,
I really hope
we can minimize the casualties
because none of us
want to see anybody dead.
We want to remove Hamas.
So it can stop being a threat
both for Israelis and Palestinians.
And in order
to transcend this conflict, it's
not just about creating peace.
It's about creating justice.
There's injustice both for Israelis
and both for Palestinians.
And there's one land
and one land that we can both live on.
But in order to get there,
we have to stop these zero
sum game
narratives that are educating people
that in order to be pro-Israel,
you have to be anti-Palestinian.
Or in order to be pro-Palestinian,
you have to be anti-Israel.
The reality,
if you're anti, either you're anti both
because we both belong in this line
and we will both be here eternally.
You mentioned that you've been out
of the Israeli military
for about ten years.
Is there anything in your experience
that compares
to what you are about to go into
and how long are you expecting
this conflict to last?
Yes, I got out of the Army in 2013.
So in 2012
there was an operation on the border
where we almost went into Gaza shortly
after I finished the army in 2014.
The IDF went into Gaza.
So this is not something
new, unfortunately,
but I hope
this will be the last time
that this happens.
We certainly hope it will be for you
and for really everyone in the region.
Rudy Brockmann,
thank you for joining us
and we wish you all the best.
Thank you for having me.
And for a closer look at what's happening
on the developing battlefield
right now,
I'm joined by CNN military analyst
Colonel Cedric Leighton.
Colonel Leighton, we're
we've been discussing the issue of the
the potential refugees
that could be made in Gaza
if they do flee.
Talk to us about what
evacuation even
looks like in Gaza right now.
I mean,
a million people
in that part of the territory.
Where do they even go?
Yeah, that's
going to be the real question, Avi.
And, you know,
let's take a look at the evacuation zone
as we know it right now,
because when you see the types of things
that can happen here,
you've got this area in the north.
There are
about 1.1 million people
that are in this area at this point.
And what's going to happen, Abby,
is they are supposed to, according to
what the Israelis have told them,
go down here toward the Rafah crossing
right here, the Egyptian border.
So their ability to do this
kind of thing
is actually going to be limited
because they really don't
have a humanitarian corridor
coming through this way.
And can you give us a sense
of the distance here
or the distances both in space up here
and how far they would need to travel?
Yes.
So basically,
we're talking about 25 to 30 miles down
this way. It's a very small place.
Gaza is about 140 square miles total,
a total population,
about 2.2 million people.
So it's pretty dense
in terms of its population.
And what they're going
to have to do in a case
like this
is not only go through these areas,
but they're no safe zones
in any of these areas.
And when you go through these areas
which are less densely populated
than the northern area,
there are less services there, less
there's less of an ability
to care for people.
And if they don't
get this crossing opened,
they won't be able to
really stay in this area
for a long period of time
because it's going to be a place
where they don't have living facilities,
they don't have water,
they don't have sanitation
or any of those things.
I want to talk now about as what
the build up
that we're seeing
of Israeli troops around Gaza.
As you can see,
it's there basically surrounding Gaza.
And then just to show our audience here,
these are some pictures of
just the heavy machinery that is
that is part of
that build up when you look at this
as someone with a military eye.
Tell us what you're seeing
and what does it tell us about
what the Israelis are preparing for?
So this is kind of reminiscent
of a scene from D-Day back in 1944
when Eisenhower was talking
to his paratroopers
before they launched that invasion.
This is what units do.
The commanding officer
will talk to the units.
They will go out.
They will deploy in forward positions.
You see the Merkava tanks coming through
and armored personnel carriers
call the tanks right there.
They're Israeli made.
They've been in service
since 1979 in the Israeli army.
They've got radio equipment,
they've got
their rifles, they've got ammunition.
They are ready to go.
These people are well-trained.
They're ready to go.
And they will deploy to forward positions
that are right near the Gaza border.
Obviously, this has been
a week now
of really intense bombing in Gaza.
And I just want to give our audience
a sense here of how this compares
to another previous conflict
that lasted 50 days,
almost the same number of
bombs dropped in that time.
And the dust,
the death toll here.
Colonel Leighton,
what can we expect?
Really, this is 50 days versus six days.
We're almost at the same place.
As we go forward,
what can we realistically expect
in terms of the toll
that this will all take?
I'm afraid
it's going to be a very heavy toll
and this could be
an exceptionally gruesome war.
All wars are gruesome, but this one,
because of the close quarters,
because of the urban combat
that inevitably going to happen
through the narrow
alleyways of Gaza City
and other places like that.
I'm afraid that this death toll
is going to rise considerably.
There are ways to mitigate that.
Israel says it's trying to do that.
The problem is, is that Hamas will use
innocent civilians
as human shields in this scenario.
And that's something that has happened
in other places in Iraq.
It happened in Afghanistan. It happened.
This is the kind of thing
that we can expect.
And unfortunately,
if this isn't stopped,
we are going to see a situation where
the forces will meet
and there's going to be a major increase
in this death toll.
Yeah, I think we
we just have to
be clear eyed about what
we are facing in this region
going forward.
It's going to be gruesome.
Unfortunately.
Colonel Leighton, we appreciate you
joining us on all of that.