'Iran and Hamas wanted October 7th to be so brutal that Israel would do exactly what it's doing now'
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00:00 For more, we can now speak to former intelligence officer Michael Prejant, former advisor to
00:06 the ex-CIA director David Petraeus.
00:10 Mr Prejant, thanks very much for joining us here on France 24.
00:13 First up, your reaction to Israel's declaration that it's expanding its operation, its ground
00:19 operation in Gaza.
00:21 Yes, thanks for having me.
00:24 This expansion now is focusing on the non-missile and rocket capabilities of Hamas, the tunnel
00:32 network, command centers, and also ambush sites that Hamas has put in place ahead of
00:38 the ground offensive.
00:39 So this is Israel softening the obstacle barriers, so to speak, ahead of the ground offensive,
00:46 and this will continue.
00:48 The one thing that your audience should know is that it's Hamas preventing civilians from
00:52 leaving these areas that are being hit by Israeli airstrikes and also by this ground
00:58 offensive.
00:59 Hamas needs dead Palestinians to justify their existence.
01:03 It's Hamas that's keeping them in place and not letting them move to the Egyptian border.
01:08 What might the significance of the phone line and internet lines going down at the same
01:13 time as Israel makes this declaration, what might that mean?
01:16 Well, it's a way to keep Hamas blind in some cases.
01:21 Hamas is relying on media feeds also that show what the Israelis are doing, also on
01:26 the internet to talk to people on Telegram and other apps where they communicate what
01:32 the Israeli military is doing.
01:34 So it's a way to keep Hamas blind in this case, keep cell phones, towers, make sure
01:41 they're down, make sure the internet is down.
01:43 But Hamas, they still have access to American phones and those phones can access Israeli
01:49 towers in Israel.
01:51 But it's an attempt to keep Hamas blind so they don't see what's coming.
01:55 You said that Hamas depends on having Palestinians remaining in the Gaza Strip.
02:01 This is one area.
02:03 Another area is the hostage situation in there.
02:05 Over 200 hostages held, we estimate, in Gaza.
02:09 How might this situation, if Israel is to step up its operation, affect that?
02:14 Yeah, I think, you know, with the release of, what, four hostages to date, four American
02:20 hostages, at that pace, this would delay the Israeli invasion of Gaza maybe for a year,
02:27 a year and a half.
02:29 So because of that, it's a tactic that Hamas is putting in place.
02:33 It's smart to be able to use the leverage of hostages to delay the ground offensive.
02:39 But they're using the leverage of dual citizen hostages, meaning American hostages and European
02:45 hostages, not the Israeli hostages.
02:48 And I think the Israeli defense forces know that the longer they wait, the less leverage
02:53 they are going to have to keep those Israeli hostages alive.
02:59 Going into these tunnel networks, I think the Israeli military does expect to find dead
03:04 Israeli hostages because the more this goes on, the lower the expectation that they survive
03:11 this will be.
03:14 And the more foreigners released, the more danger it is to those Israeli hostages that
03:19 remain, as the international community continues to condemn Israel for these strikes in Gaza.
03:27 And once these foreign nationals are released, then I think Israel will lose that window
03:31 of opportunity where they still have support from the international community and subsectors
03:36 to conduct these operations against Hamas.
03:40 Now in terms of recent history, recent conflicts between Israel and Hamas, it doesn't have
03:46 a good recent history in terms of the dense urban environment of Gaza in terms of military
03:52 success.
03:53 What's it likely to do differently this time?
03:59 This time they're going all in.
04:01 They're leveling key positions, buildings that will have overwatch of the Israeli ground
04:07 assault.
04:10 Those buildings will be watched.
04:11 This is different.
04:12 October 7th changed everything.
04:16 Israel is going to be more aggressive.
04:17 And I would argue that this is exactly what Iran and Hamas wanted.
04:21 They wanted October 7th to be so brutal that Israel would do exactly what it's doing now.
04:27 And I think this is a time where Israel is looking at this tunnel network, and they're
04:32 going to put in place, they're going to employ some advanced technology.
04:36 They're going to employ advanced weapons.
04:39 But I think the cost of that is that there will be dead Israeli hostages, unfortunately.
04:45 I think the Israelis know that by now.
04:48 And something that Israeli families say is they found comfort in knowing that their loved
04:53 ones died on October 7th, as opposed to being taken hostage by Hamas and being tortured
05:02 or eventually being killed.
05:04 So I think Israel is just coming to the realization that the longer this goes, the less likely
05:09 it is that they'll get those Israeli hostages out.
05:13 And if, as you say, Israel is currently reacting exactly as Iran wanted to in this situation,
05:20 can it then succeed?
05:22 You know, it's tough.
05:25 It depends on American resolve, right?
05:27 It depends on American backbone.
05:29 You know, I made an argument earlier that if these explosions were happening against
05:33 IRGC positions in Syria, in Iraq, and even in Iran, that the war would stop tomorrow.
05:41 Iran decides the more this is simply focused on Hamas, the more likely Israel is to fail,
05:47 the more likely the U.S. is to fail, and the more likely it is for our allies in the region
05:54 to fail, in that Iran will continue to fight to the last Arab, continue to use their proxies
06:00 to destabilize the Levant and Israel.
06:03 And if the Biden administration doesn't do anything about Iran, and I mean make Iran
06:09 feel pain now, this is going to continue.
06:12 Tehran sees a window of opportunity.
06:14 They see the next 12 to 16 months as a window of opportunity where there's a Biden administration
06:19 that doesn't want to engage Iran, and they're going to take advantage of that.
06:24 All right.
06:25 Thank you very much for your insight there, Michael Prejean, Tasini Fadoh from the Hudson
06:29 Institute with your comments there.