Slick propaganda,
a blatant threat and published last year.
Hamas gunmen
training a motorized paragliders.
They also showed meticulous planning
for fighting in built up areas.
All an historic failure
of Israeli intelligence.
Hamas videos
of the start of their assaults from Gaza
were published
within hours of its launch.
Once a branch of the Muslim
Brotherhood, Hamas,
a Sunni movement,
won Palestinian elections in 2006
on a platform of social reform
and resistance to Israel.
Riven by corruption
and incompetence, rivals Fatah
launched attacks immediately
against the movement,
which denies the right of Israel
to exist at all.
In the end, Hamas won control of Gaza
and its grip on the enclave of around
2 million people tightened
as Israel and Egypt
largely sealed it off,
causing intense humanitarian problems.
Hamas responded with
waves of rocket attacks
against Israel that got worse
as the years went by.
Israel counterattacked from the air
and with ground assaults that left
thousands dead and Hamas still in charge.
But Iran's influence has been key
to Hamas's military power.
The Iranians have trained
Palestinian engineers
and how to establish rocket
manufacturing in Gaza.
We know that the Iranians have provided
production, social production equipment,
which you need
for the production
of solid propellant rockets to Gaza
and to other places as well.
Israel knows
it must battle Hamas on its own
turf in urban areas,
latticed with explosive traps
and riddled with secret tunnels.
And Hamas
will draw on the experience
of Iran backed Hezbollah,
which ravaged Israel's armor in 2006.
All the while trying
to protect the lives
of at least 130 hostages that Hamas says
they will kill
if Israel's attacks continue.
Dealing with violent groups
backed by Iran,
a country
that's bent on destroying Israel
and building a nuclear weapon
that could do just that.
Sam Kiley, CNN.
Some perspective now from New York Times
foreign affairs
columnist Thomas Friedman,
who's been covering the region
and writing about it since the 1980s.
His bestselling account from Beirut
to Jerusalem is considered required
reading for students.
The Middle East.
Tom, why do you think this
attack happened now?
Why did Hamas choose to strike now?
Was it
divisions within Israel
that they sense
the the the looming Saudi deal?
I have to believe that
the looming Saudi deal
was a big factor in this,
because we're talking about something
that would have been
a fundamental geopolitical shift
in the region.
Saudi Arabia
normalizing relations with Israel
opens ties up between Israel
and really the
the rest of the
of the Muslim world,
possibly Indonesia, Malaysia.
It would be a huge strategic shift.
But more importantly, Anderson,
it also would have had to have been done
as part of a deal
that would have,
I think, strengthened
the legitimacy of Hamas's archrival,
the Palestinian Authority, in Ramallah,
because that normalization
between Israel and Saudi
Arabia could only have been done
if Israel also made concessions
to the Palestinian Authority.
Give me a greater control
over certain areas in the West
Bank, administrative control,
putting some kind of
freeze of settlements down
and and basically reviving hopes
for a two state solution.
So I think both of those were in play.
And at the same time,
I think it sense
that Israel
was completely distracted by a needless
judicial coup inside
and the two came together properly.
The big question,
of course, about
the level of Iran's involvement.
You know, U.S.
officials have said
they haven't seen a smoking gun,
but certainly Iran supports Hamas.
Islamic Jihad, certainly.
Yeah.
I mean, again,
no one, I think, has a smoking gun.
But same time,
Iran's overriding interest in
not seeing its two arch
enemies, Israel and Saudi Arabia,
forge an agreement together.
I think it is really apparent there.
Otherwise,
the thing is, even beyond being barbaric,
even more senseless and stupid
than that, than it appears if Hamas
just did this on some fleeing
for no apparent reason
other than had the resources,
it's now, you know, visited
just tremendous
destruction on itself
on Palestinians in Gaza and maybe lost
a strategic number of weapons
that it will it will hopefully
you'll never be able
to threaten Israel again.
So I can only believe
it had something to do with that Iran
with that Saudi Israel
normalization deal.
The Israeli government
has called
for a complete siege of of Gaza.
Benjamin Netanyahu spoke
today, did not specifically
talk about a ground incursion,
but certainly
that would seem to be in the cards
or certainly a strong possibility.
We all know the difficulties of that,
the inherent dangers in that.
We know the international outrage
that will
that will grow
the as conditions deteriorate in Gaza
and the civilian population suffers.
You know,
Israel risks a lot by a ground invasion,
not just in blood
of of of their people, of their soldiers,
but also in in
in actually being able to
to get what they want.
I mean, doesn't it?
It can actually go in.
It can actually play into
the hands of Iran, can't it?
Well, you
know, in these kind of moments, Anderson,
I always ask myself,
and I'm sure Israel's asking itself,
I hope it is, what does my enemy want?
And then let's do exactly the opposite.
So what do Israel's
enemies want right now?
Iran and Hezbollah and Hamas.
They want Israel
to occupy Gaza, get enmeshed in a,
you know, door to door, house
to house fighting. There,
kill a lot of Palestinian civilians
and completely erode
the moral high ground
that it has right now,
which does have real value.
That's what they want.
They don't care less about their people.
If they did, Hamas would have been
governing Gaza
in completely different way.
I hope that Israel can achieve its goals
of restoring its detergent, deterrence,
getting its hostages back,
but doing it in a
way that is not against
the aims of Hamas.
These are hard calls I recognize.
But you don't want underplay it.
You don't want to overplay it.
But I hope Israel
does not have to go into Gaza
and or if it does,
doesn't go far or deep.
Is it
possible, though, for Israel
to avoid going into Gaza?
I mean, if they want to stop,
Hamas is military capabilities
moving forward
from being able
to do the same kind of attack?
What other option is there?
Well, I think that
one of the things
that Hamas has done, again, which
sort of leaves
you wondering what they were thinking
among many things, is that
they've they've shown Israel
every vulnerability it had in Gaza.
And they they did that
for the purpose of inflicting, you know,
seven or 800
civilian and military casualties
on Israel.
But now, where are you, Hamas?
How are you better off?
Are the Palestinians of Gaza better off?
But you've just shown Israel
when blessedly for Israel, that
it had all these vulnerabilities.
They will the Israelis will study this.
They will close them.
Hamas is now fired off a lot of weapons.
Also shown Israel
what new missile technology it had.
So I think there's a lot of things
that Israel can achieve in the long
run that will leave Hamas
much more weakened without
having to go in
and try to reoccupy the place, because
if not, you know,
maybe there's only one thing
worse than Hamas controlling Gaza,
and that's nobody controlling Gaza
or Israel happening to control Gaza.
And so, you know, this is this problem
hasn't been insoluble
for so many years for a reason.
And, you know,
I think this is a time for Israel
to do deep
thinking about how deep it gets in.
I'm sure they are. But I think
this is a really
some critical decisions
got to be taken here.
There are, I'm sure,
plenty of the civilians in Gaza who
oppose Hamas,
who don't like the Hamas regime, and yet
they don't really have anywhere to go.
I mean, Israel,
you know,
the IDF will say go to other areas.
But it is it's so densely packed,
it is very difficult
for civilians in Gaza.
And that's why, you know, Anderson,
some problems are kind of insoluble.
Unless Israel wants to completely
occupy Gaza
and nurture a completely different kind
of Palestinian government there
and stay there
probably multiple generations,
it would take,
it's going to have to deal with
some form, most likely, of Hamas.
I think the point is to put Hamas
in a situation
where it can never
do this kind of attack again,
where it's on the defensive
in international circles and is deterred.
But I think deterrence is
is the only outcome here.
You're not going to remake Gaza.
You know, the notion of you know,
of completely transforming
that situation through military means,
it is not going to happen.