'Stop talking about losses - let's crush them'

Maj. Gen. Itzhak Brik, who warned against the failings that led to the current war, spoke with Arutz Sheva - Israel National News to analyze the course of the war so far.

"I'm satisfied, but also worried," begins Brik. "I want to say that definitely in the three weeks since we were attacked, the IDF should have organized itself to be able to deal with Hamas and Islamic Jihad inside Gaza. Only three weeks, because the previous commanders thinned out the plans they had in front of them."

Brik explains what he means. "There was a time when the Southern Command was focused on the right goal, and that was when Eyal Zamir, who currently serves as Director General of the Ministry of Defense, was the commander of the Southern Command. He built a plan that was thought out from all directions with special means to deal with tunnel shafts, with soldiers who train and practice everything. But the commanders who came after him decided that such a war would probably not happen. Because in their opinion Hamas was deterred and there was no point in entering the Gaza Strip. They scaled back the plans and training for the activation of the special measures, some of which disappeared. This is the situation the IDF was in on the eve of the attack from the Gaza Strip."

He says that to his delight, his assessment that the internal disputes would harm the motivation to enlist in the reserves during wartime was wrong. "In the past three weeks, hundreds of thousands of soldiers were recruited, and I admit that I was wrong on this issue. We see tremendous motivation, fighting spirit, belief in the righteousness of the path that accompanies the people, love of the homeland, the value of service, the understanding that we have no other country, giving to the country, and taking risks for the family and society as a whole. The people of Israel united after a year of chaos - and this shows tremendous resilience."

"I estimated that the motivation for combat service would decrease further after it had decreased in recent years by 15%. All the signs showed that, in the chaotic situation we were in, we would not receive all the strength that I see now. Therefore, I am glad that I was wrong in this matter," adds Brik.

Alongside the high motivation, he also recognizes proper preparation. "You see that the army has succeeded in improving its equipment and massively training all the units that have not trained for years. In the process, it is also plotting a new course. I am not familiar with the new plans, but I also told the Prime Minister that we must not go in blind. That is, not to rush the army deep into Gaza, without doing it with much intelligence. In the first stage, it was necessary to suffocate them and surround them, and that's what the army did. Now we need to continue bombing and make sure that fuel does not arrive and they come out of the tunnels and weaken, and then we will cripple them. We must not bring a lot of forces in, but rather hit their weak points.”

"There were statesmen and senior defense officials who said that it was necessary to take into account that there would be heavy losses. Why do they even bring up ‘heavy losses’? Why did they get into this discussion? Let's crush them, weaken them, give them no fuel and they will rot in the tunnels," he added.

Brik points out that "Prime Minister Netanyahu accepted my recommendation. He understood the concept of surrounding and weakening the enemy with the Air Force - we strangle them and use surgical strikes when necessary. We will have to continue with this for months and years and tell the world that they must accept refugees or there will be a problem, and if they want to send in humanitarian aid we must inspect it carefully. Only with such a long-term process will we succeed."

Brik poses a number of questions to the political and military system, which he believes have not been considered in the current campaign.

"The first question is what is the desired objective. The answer should come from the assumption that under Gaza there are 500 km of tunnels, an entire city with thousands of shafts, that the IDF cannot deal with. The question is how do you win without reaching all of them - because that is an impossible task."

"The second question is how long we need to be inside Gaza in order to achieve the goal we have defined. The assumption should be that time is not in our favor and the longer we are in Gaza the more the casualties will mount, the more the world will pressure us more to leave, and the more the economy will drop."

"The third and most important question is how we will deal with the claims of victory from Hamas and Islamic Jihad, because even after we go out and eliminate thousands of terrorists, there will still be tens of thousands and hundreds of tunnels left. They will say that the IDF withdrew and they stayed. I'm not sure we've thought of the answer."

In his opinion, "If we don't have answers to all the questions I’ve asked, we need to think about how to operate correctly, so that we can say we have truly won and the whole world won't come and say 'You were defeated, you left and they’re still there.'"

Brik stresses that Israel experienced a significant miracle when Hezbollah did not open a northern front at the same time as Hamas. "If Hezbollah had acted on October 7 at the same time as Hamas, we would not be here today. While Hamas broke into the communities near the Gaza border, Hezbollah could have crossed the border with 10,000 well-trained commandos, and they would have entered easily because exactly what happened at the Gaza border would have happened in the north. They would sweep through the Galilee, occupy IDF camps where divisions need to be mobilized, and then they would enter towns and seize central junctions."

"Worse still, they would not fire 40kg Qassams like Hamas, but rather fire from a stockpile of 150,000 missiles and rockets, some of which are capable of pinpoint accuracy and weigh hundreds of kilograms. This would mean 3,000 missiles and rockets launched every day toward the State of Israel’s population centers, water and electricity infrastructures, strategic targets and Air Force bases. We would wake up to an unimaginably worse scenario. We wouldn't have been able to mobilize at all," he adds.

None of this happened in the end. "It was a real miracle. We managed to mobilize the army to the north, we managed to convince Biden to bring aircraft carriers. Today, if a regional war develops, we are no longer alone. We have a huge fleet of American planes in the region that will be on our side. The thing is, we cannot rely on such miracles in the future. We need to be strong all the time, so that we can handle any situation on our own and not rely on the miracles that happened to us."

How do we prepare for such a situation? "We need to make a significant change in the IDF. It used to be clear that at any given moment one division should be mobilized and ready for war, and there was such a rota between the divisions. That no longer exists because everyone cut back and saved. We have hundreds of tanks that are up for sale or scrapping and there are crews that are at home and don't have tanks and are not mobilizing. They need to be reorganized and a division prepared for an emergency that will always be ready to respond. We need to prepare ourselves to face missiles because planes alone are not able to hold off the enemy. We need a missile force that Avigdor Liberman promoted once upon a time and needs to continue to be promoted today. We are living in the past. We were complacent and fell asleep at our posts."

"In the last 20 years, we assumed that peace had broken out," Brik continues. "We have peace with Egypt and Jordan, and the Syrians are irrelevant. Then, the security conception of five Chiefs of Staff said that we should not have a large army, but a small, technological, and lethal army. We were mainly based on the Air Force, we wore down the ability of the ground forces, in inverse proportion to the ever-increasing threat to Israel. This brought us to the point where we fell asleep at our posts. And therefore, when an existential war breaks out like it has now, we are no longer able to manage without the help of the US. It is possible to bring about a situation where we can deal with it ourselves."

Along with all the problems he raises, there are also suggestions for a solution. "A year and a half ago, I came to Reichman University to Prof. Boaz Ganor, who at the time was the director of the Institute for Research in the Field of Terrorism, and I suggested to him that we establish five teams of experts, in five fields, who would not only talk about the problems but also about the solutions. For an entire year we worked with five teams who dealt with the perception of security, readiness of the home front, readiness of the ground forces, defense against missiles and rockets, and the organizational culture of the IDF. We published an 80-page report containing facts, solutions, and recommendations. The document was sent to all levels of leadership, and then we met with all the decision-makers in the previous and current government. Everyone adopted the conclusions and the solution. So everyone accepts the solutions - and now we have to start implementing them."

Brik also warns to be ready for extreme scenarios in Judea and Samaria. "Three weeks before the war I spoke with 50 security coordinators of towns in the Samaria Regional Council. I told them, ‘You have to be ready to protect your towns, not with a few guns, but with civilian emergency squads of dozens of people armed with rifles and a lot of ammunition and with fortified fighting positions built throughout the town. You will be dealing with thousands of extremist rioters who will come from the big cities and villages and try to enter your towns. This is something that should be done now and not wait, because in this situation the army will be busy with other things and will not be able to reach every town."

"They all paid close attention, and it is clear to me that today there is a higher awareness and they are trying to make all the preparations for extreme situations. This should happen in the northern towns as well. We must also establish a national guard that will operate all over the country because in an extreme situation, there will be riots even within the State of Israel and we need to protect ourselves. The army won't reach these places, and you have to understand that the next war will be mainly on the home front and include not just missiles but rioters as well. We have to prepare for this at the same time as the war in Gaza because it's something that could happen tomorrow as well," he points out.

To the question about the dilemma facing the political system over the release of the hostages, the general replied, "It is a difficult challenge. I say that if the people of Israel do not see that the government is doing everything to free the hostages, a situation will develop in which young people will say that if this is how the state treats its citizens, why should they fight for the state? This must not happen.”

"That's why," he stresses, "the state should not only talk - but prove that it does everything in practice. We should strive for a situation where we receive all the hostages immediately and in return we will pay the prices they want, even if it means releasing terrorists with blood on their hands. We have to pay the price before the operation is over, put them in pits together with their friends and suffocate them there, then bomb them with bunker busters and chase down those who are still alive. It is better if we pay today to save as many people as possible."

Brik was asked if there were any bright spots in Israel’s situation. "What gives me hope is the reality that is happening in the country today in terms of the fighting spirit and the unity of the people. Two months ago, when we were in the midst of political struggles, protests, and hatred, there was a disintegration of the national resilience. In that situation, it was impossible to win. There is no doubt that this strengthened the fighting spirit of the enemy, who saw our inner disintegration".

"This unity that we have achieved must continue. I fear that after everything is over, the poison and the conflicts will return. It must not happen again - and we must know how to preserve unity. We are allowed to fight and argue - but we must be able to stand together," he concludes.