The Iron Dome has intercepted at least eight missiles or barrages of missiles that have been fired from Hamas, so doing the math there more than one an hour.
Here.
Some of that has been hitting the so called Gaza envelope, which is along the Israel Gaza border, but it has gone as north as Jerusalem here and here from Israel into Gaza, we have been seeing the Israel Defense Forces continuing its assault by land and by air.
So what they're calling the second phase is underway in Gaza. All the talk over the weekend on your Sunday talk shows, also in and editorials in the newspapers are all about how do we stop Israel from killing too many people? How do we stop Israel from going too far? No talk really of how do you wipe out hamasks so they don't murder people? Again, all of the talk on the other side, and I just feel like Israel's being presented with a modern conundrum that has never existed in
the history of the world successfully done. So I don't know what they're going to do.
Well, before we plunge on with that conversation, which is a good one, let's introduce doctor Jeff mcauslin's CBS News military consultant to decorating veteran of the United States Army, Jeff, how are you, sir?
Very well, guys, good be with you.
So while that Jackson introduction sounded a little like media criticism, and there's an element to it there, there is no question that international support, American support, world opinion is a factor in all this. And Israel has a real conundrum.
No, it certainly does. I mean they're conducting warfare in the traditional free domains air land and sea, isolating the battlefield. Now going to a second faith, it might be important to main weight maybe information information war. And it certainly
seems Israel is not doing terribly well. As it does appear the global community is turning against Israel and the conduct of their operations, as a number of Palestinians killed and wounded clins and there are reports as many as eight thousand citizens of Gods that have been killed since this fighting began, and over twenty thousand have been injured.
But from the onset, of course, there was this popular revulsion around the world to the Heenus attacks by Hamas that had killed twelve hundred israel thes two hundred youngsters at a music festival, elderly people and babies. But now, as the war's going on for several weeks and that continues, that does seem to be what's turning against Israel to come back to you know, is there a comparison historically?
The one I think of frankly, is Isis. You know, Isis threatened the same kind of barbaric action and conducted that in Iraq, and we basically determined, we the world community, that this particular group had to be extinguished and brought
together a coalition of country's to do that. US forces are still in Iraq and Syria to this very day, to the tune of about three thousand to three thousand, five hundred for that mission, and many have been struck by attacks from Scheid militia supported by Iran as this war in the Gaza Strip has commenced.
So if AMAS is going to you know, put their headquarters under a hospital or surround themselves with civilians, I don't what is Israel supposed to do? Say, I guess you win. You won, you came up with a clever strategy, So I mean, don't I honestly don't know what they're supposed to do.
No, You're exactly right. It is a terrible conundrum. I think what they frankly need to do, however, is do more in terms of showing some effort to provide humanitarian assistance to the Gaza Strip. The last twenty four hours, it's seen about thirty three trucks arrive in the strip. That's about a fraction of the humanitarian assistance that people from the World Health Organization the UN seems to believe
is required. So I think if if in fact Israel has had a more aggressive effort provide humanitarian assistance, particularly in the southern part of the Kazas where they have actually urged the citizens of Gods of the flee to that might also reduce this turn against public opinion against Israel and also hopefully damp and down it worries me an awful lot, and that is this war widening across
the region. In the last twenty four hours, Israel struck Hitzmalah in Lebanon, they have struck targets in Syria those in the aftermath of strikes coming from those directions as well. Oh, by the way, and US forces in Rock and Syria have been struck once again. So the real concern to me is if we can't dampen down this effort towards a widening conflict, then things which are really bad right now could actually get a lot worse.
It's an excellent point. The information war is not merely an information war. It could turn into a kinetic one. But speaking of that sort of thing, if you were involved in the Israeli military, you're helping plan the cleansing of Hamas without a humanitarian nightmare, how serious is that logistical challenge? Does the ground troops move into Gaza?
Well, look at this way, there's thirteen thousand people per square mile in one of the most densely populated areas on the planet Earth. You can consider why you would conduct the combat operations in central Manhattan. You know, I was in Fallujah, a city of about two and fifty thousand that we went into in Lay two thousand and four to destroy a terrorist group in that particular city. About eighty ninety percent of the people of Pellujah had left by the time we moved in. Took us six weeks.
About one hundred Americans were killed and about five hundred were wounded. I remember going through the streets of Fallujah with my security detachment, and every building had two big exits on it, y two exits. That meant every room, every closet, every basement had been searched twice. And that's exactly what Israel's going to have to do in the Gazas trip. The other big difference was in Fellujah there was no building I remember, except for a mosque perhaps
that had over three stories. Look at the film, look at the multi story buildings in Gaza and imagine you're going to go through every room, every apartment, every closet, every basement, and at the same time be worried about the fact that there are three hundred miles perhaps of tunnels under the Gaza strip that can afford Jumas the opportunity to flee out through those tunnels or come through those tunnels come up behind you, as well as storing
large portions of weapons m explosives in those areas to conduct the fight.
Well, the topic of the news cycle is what we've been discussing, this new phase of the Israel taken on Hamas in Gaza. But the new cycle on Friday, and I want to ask you your opinion on this was all about have we responded enough to Iran? They hit us so many different military basis, injured so many people, and then we kind of struck them. Do you feel like we've done enough to deter them or is there more to come?
Well deterrence is there a function of what happens in the aftermath. And unfortunately, in the last twenty four to thirty six hours, we've seen a couple of strikes against US bases in Iraq and in Syria, in the aftermath of a fairly extensive airstrike against an area we know used by Al Kuds, which is a Iranian port of the Iranian military or Iranian Revolutionary Guards, as well as militia groups they are conducting operations in Syria and Iraq.
The question is that sufficient at the short term? Right now it does not appear so, But the same token, the US is beefing up its military forces in the region. USS Eisenhower just entered the Mediterranean Sea and many people thought initially it would be going off the shore of Israel. I actually think it'll probably transit the Swiss Canal, go down through the Red Sea and be on station off the Persian Gulf. First time we've had a carrier in the Gulf for quite some period of time, just to
send a clear message to the Iranians. If you keep doing this, We're going to keep pounding those particular militia groups in Iraq and in Syria. They're conducting these operations and obviously you do not want this conflict to expand.
Jeff mccauslin, CBS News Military consultant. Final question for me, Jeff, getting back to the situation in Gaza, is if everything went, you know, as good as somebody could conceive of for the Israeli forces, how long a timetable are we looking at for them to just connect the battle operations, never mind rebuilding and trying to form some new reality that's not patently dangerous.
Well, history's in perfect, but it's the only metaphor we got. The Battle of Felujah took six weeks. That was a tiny fraction of the size of the Godza Strip, maybe one tenth the size of the gods Strip. The Battle of Mozil, where we took that back from ISIS Rocki forces took nine months to root out three to five thousand ISIS fighters from Mosiul and Hamas has probably six to eight times that many fighters and they lost eight thousand, five hundred killed in action, say the Iraqis in that effort,
Nobody this day knows how many civilians were killed. The Israelis are a far superior middle relitory force to the Iraqis. But the scale of this operation is just enormous. So to answer your question, we're talking I think weeks, if not months of operations in tense fighting, very heavy cases on both sides, until in fact any threat posed by Jamas is eliminated.
Well, just we're going to let you go. But do you think there are going to be tens of thousands of Palestinians killed in this operation?
There already have been over eight thousand killed since this war began two weeks ago, twenty thousand and injured, and obviously the fighting is going to get more intense as you go through the streets of the Gaza Strip. Israelis have called for two hospitals to be evacuated that are
in Gaza City. That's virtually impossible, and around one of those hospitals alone there are up to sixty thousand people seeking refuge, and as you pointed out, very likely in that building is a command and control network come up.
Jeff mccaughlin. Jeff, thanks very much for the time. We appreciate it.
Take care, Armstrong and Getty