The former head of Israel’s security services, Rear Admiral Ami Ayalon, in an interview with the French newspaper Le Figaro, analyzing the situation after the attack by Hamas, he claims that “this attack will change the face of Israel” since, as he emphasizes, “it is the first time since the creation of the Jewish state, that hundreds citizens were massacred, murdered in their homes”.

In terms of the dramatic events of the last days is like a new Yom Kippur warestimates that in the long run the 2023 page will look much more serious.

“It will take us years to understand the long-term impact of the horror and fear associated with these events.” he notes, underlining: “We created a state to defend ourselves. We invested a huge amount of money to make sure our military is the strongest and most effective and it all came crashing down on October 7, 2023. Most people no longer expect anything from our political leaders. We expected something from our military commanders, but that too failed.”

He places much of the blame on the government for not listening, as he notes, to the view of the commanders of all security organizations that the policy it is pursuing was wrong and that it was obvious how it will be used by the enemies who, as he emphasizes, see the great division of the country around the crisis caused by the justice reform.

“Of course, the politicians did not listen to anything, especially regarding the warnings about the West Bank,” he emphasizes, adding: “The Israeli government has gone out of its way to ensure that Fatah and the Palestinian Authority are no longer partners, giving power to Hamas. We have tolerated the unacceptable, allowing Hamas to arm themselves on our doorstep since 2006. We have allowed Qatar to funnel funds to them, which has allowed them to arm themselves. Hamas is a very structured organization, Hamas is an ideology, it is a social movement. Now we must ensure that this massive military capability is no longer on our doorstep. This requires a massive military operation.”

He considers a ground operation in Gaza inevitable, underlining that there is no other option but the destruction of the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades (the armed wing of Hamas).. “We must say from the beginning that our war is not against the Palestinian people. Our war is against the military wing of Hamas” he emphasizes and adds: “Before we attack we should say that we want to create a reality in which we will talk to the Palestinians who accept the peace initiatives and who want to discuss with us the reality of two states. But I believe that no Israeli government would agree to do that today. However, if we don’t we will see an increase in violence. Even today, Israel refuses to admit that the Palestinians are a people. Economic development will not be enough for them. They want freedom, they want to see the end of the occupation.”

Finally, as to whether the ground attack is a trap for Israel, he states that “it will be very difficult”, since, as he emphasizes, in order to achieve this, they will have to kill thousands of Palestinians, without him having any idea how many Israelis soldiers and how many Israeli civilians will die. He also knows that the more Palestinians they kill in Gaza, the greater the chances of Hezbollah intervention in the north of the country and that the level of terror in the West Bank will increase. “What will happen on the Arab streets in Jordan, in Egypt… There are many unknown factors,” he notes.

However, he emphasizes: “The military capabilities of Hamas must be eliminated, because today we are in a very difficult situation. And to destroy the military wing of Hamas, there is no alternative to a ground attack, because we cannot kill 2 million people with bombing.”