Press Briefing by Major General Giora Eiland- Head of the IDF Operation Branch - 20-May-2001

Jerusalem May 20, 2001

MAJ.GEN. GIORA EILAND: Since we are now in the Foreign Office, I am

not going to speak about the political aspect of the present conflict for obvious reasons, but I am going to explain the security situation as we see it, and not only as a result of the past two days but also as a summary, if you want of the past two or three months.

If we want to see some changes in the way that this conflict develops, we can go back to let us say March 1st this year. We can see that during the past two and a half months, since that date, we have experienced 28 attempts to plant bombs inside Israel. When I say inside Israel I actually mean two things: first, it is inside what we call the Green Line; and second, all these 28 attempts have been in civilian places. Fortunately not all of them were successful. In some cases we detected the explosive before it was detonated and in some there was some kind of technical failure, but some of them were successful, at least in their eyes.

Maybe the best example to show the two types of terrorist attacks is what happened in Netanya on Friday on the one hand, and what didn't happen in Jerusalem later that day. In Netanya, there was a suicide attack and the results are quite known. A few hours later there was an attempt to plant a bomb inside a pub in Jerusalem where dozens of youngsters were drinking and spending their time. Fortunately the owner of this pub saw someone who had no reason to be there at the time - a Palestinian employee who used to work at that place until a few weeks ago or a few months ago. She asked him what exactly he was doing there. Since she didn't trust what he said and she noticed that he had a bag in his hand, she took that bag, she looked into it and she noticed that it was a bomb. So she took it quite bravely outside the pub and everybody was evacuated from this place. Later on the police came and exploded the device. Actually nothing happened. But you can imagine that if the owner of the pub was not that careful then the results would have been even much more severe than what happened in Netanya.

So when we speak about the Palestinian terrorist attacks inside Israel, it is not right to count only those attacks that were successful, but actually to look at the numerous number of attempts - and I speak now only about those that were put inside Israel, not to mention other types of civilian targets like mortar shells at Israeli settlements inside Gaza or outside Gaza - actually, no one makes and distinction between these two.

Now, how did this happen and why did it begin at such a level only in March? Such attacks also took place earlier, but in much lower quantities. It is part of a very clear decision that we can see not only the results, but intelligence provides us with the facts to explain it.

The Palestinian Authority decided not only to release from prison all those terrorists who belong to the organizations like Hamas and the Islamic Jihad, but also to encourage them to do what they do. Maybe one of the best expressions of that new situation was made by the leader of the Hamas, Sheikh Yassin, who said a few weeks ago that the cooperation between the Palestinian Authority and the Hamas was never that good and for the first time his people are completely free to do whatever they want.

Now let me explain what is to be completely free to do whatever they want. The Palestinians already control about 30% of the total area of the West Bank and Gaza. They have full control of about 97% of the Palestinian population. So in these places, mainly in the big Palestinian cities, which are under the full control of the Palestinian cities, the Hamas organization or the Islamic Jihad or others have the full freedom to have their laboratories where they produce their explosives, they have the full freedom to try to draft youngsters to join the Hamas and be ready to participate in such suicide attacks. They have the full freedom to make all their tests and military rehearsals and planning to prepare themselves to carry out such an attack.

So actually, when we speak about the Palestinian Authority, which we all regard as a political entity, in many senses not far away from being very close to be a state - actually it doesn't only permit that these kind of activities to be carried out, but actually encourages them and inspires them and sponsor this kind of activity.

We need not explain again why Hamas is a terrorist organization and the Islamic Jihad is a terrorist organization, but when these kind of organizations get support of the establishment, actually we can see that a Palestinian political entity encourages this kind of activity. Although shortly after the attack in Netanya they can say that they condemn this attack, everybody can understand that besides the announcement there is nothing real behind this announcement. There is no attempt to do something in order to prevent such attacks. So this is one thing that has changed in the past three months.

The second thing that has changed in the past few months is the distinctions between the different Palestinian military groups. Because if you really want to see what has changed in the Palestinian military capability or the Palestinian military operations since the beginning of this crisis until now, we can see that development. In the beginning we could clearly distinguish the Palestinian formal armed groups or the Palestinian police organizations that were quite disciplined, that had certain level of cooperation with us, but maybe not always did what we expected them to do, but at least they didn't fight against us in a very active way.

The second organization was the Tanzim. The Tanzim is actually the Palestinian movement or party, or militia, you can call it whatever you want, but actually this militia is an armed militia, again fully sponsored by the Palestinian Authority. If you speak about someone like Barghouti and who exactly supports Barghouti, of course his money he gets from Arafat. His salary is given by the Palestinian Authority, the instructions are given by the Palestinian Authority. This Tanzim that was very passive until this crisis became more and more active in its activities. In the very first days of the conflict they participated only in popular uprisings, but a short time later, due to their military capabilities, because they hold thousands of illegal weapons, they began to participate in attempts on Israeli targets not less than the others.

The third group is the traditional terrorist organizations that I already mentioned are the Hamas and the Islamic Jihad.

Now, the differences between these groups have completely diminished, to the point that in many places they don't exist. You can see, even more than that, that someone can be at the same time a member of the Tanzim and a member in the Islamic Jihad. Or he can be a Palestinian policeman but at the same time he has in his house where he produces explosives for the Islamic Jihad. So actually, when you speak about Palestinian military capabilities then it is quite hard to distinguish who is what. So this is the second thing that we can see.

The third thing that we can see is that, at the beginning of this crisis, the most significant form of Palestinian activity was the popular uprising in the streets. The frequency of the very use of this way of protest has completely diminished, and at the same time the number of real military operations have increased. The best example we could see a week ago when there was the Nakba Day, which was supposed to be a day that all the people were supposed to participate in some kind of protest, but only a relatively few really participated, and only in one place, in Ramallah. In all other places the people were quite passive and even indifferent. At the same time, there is an increase of the use of weapons by all members of the different Palestinian organizations, whether they are official organizations or they are not very official. As I said, the differences between those have completely disappeared.

If you want to see the results, we can unfortunately count now 88 Israelis who have been killed - 55 of them, which the majority of course, are civilians. All these civilians, without any exceptions, were killed deliberately and they were killed as civilians. It was not such a accident or a situation where civilians were close to some military post and accidentally they were killed simply because there was an exchange of fire between soldiers and Palestinians. All of them were killed deliberately because they were civilians, whether it was in a bomb like Netanya or it was along the roads or wherever or in many other different ways of using force.

Now, no one should be surprised by this result, because it is said loud and clear by the Palestinian leaders that as far as they are concerned every Israeli is a legitimate target. Now every Israeli can be a soldier, but at the same time can be a civilian and every civilian can be a man or a woman and can be a child. Since they don't make and distinction between these elements, the results are quite obvious.

Under these circumstances someone has to ask himself what Israel should do in order to defend himself, especially to defend its civilians. Of course, we don't have the illusion that if we retaliate and if we do something to the other side then we could stop the violence immediately. It is not so and we are not that naive. On the other hand we believe that the way that the Palestinians increase the use of violence and especially terrorism has nothing to do with any Israeli previous retaliation or response of use of force.

Actually it is a result of a very clear and strategic decision to try to escalate the situation, to escalate the violence, to try to create a situation that will be as similar as possible to what, for example as that time in Bosnia about a year, a year and a half ago. So our responses, beside the simple fact that every country has the right to defend itself actually and to try to reduce of their capabilities, in many aspects were successful.

If you remember, until three or four months ago the main criticism was against the Israeli ways of using force, what the journalists used to call the Israeli assassinations. Through this kind of targeting, the specific targets, all of them behind a specific terrorist capability or a specific terrorist operation, we managed to reduce a significant number of planned operations. I don't want even to imagine what could have happened if we didn't take this kind of steps.

So we know that there is no one military way to reduce this violence. But there are certain ways that we can reduce the other side's capability, in some ways to reduce the other side's motivation, in some way to cause a cost to the other side and not a way to be in a situation where the only thing we have to do is to suffer terrorist activities that, as I said, are fully sponsored and encouraged by the Palestinian Authority.

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Q: How wide is Hamas in support of the infrastructure, because it is unlikely that a man carrying an explosive bag was smuggled across the Green Line? This is the first question about the infrastructure inside Israel. The second one is, on Friday an army officer was ambushed and killed in circumstances similar to the liquidation methods you fight in the Israeli army. Do you think the Palestinians are copying the liquidation methods you are fighting in the Israeli army and using them against the Israeli army?

GEN. EILAND: To the first question, we hope that the Hamas

and the Islamic Jihad don't have significant infrastructure inside Israel, although in some experiences that we had in the past some Israeli Arabs used to help them. But they don't have to have this infrastructure inside Israel, because it is very simple to cross the line between the West Bank and Israel. In order to carry out these kind of attacks you have to have a very solid infrastructure inside the Palestinian areas. Later on the capability to smuggle into Israel is unfortunately not very difficult. So we guess, the only way to prevent these kind of attacks is to do something inside the Palestinian area, something that for obvious reasons the Palestinian Authority are doing it.

About the second question, the Israeli officer who was killed was killed in his private car. He was travelling with his family, his mother was severely injured and actually he was attacked not because he was a military target, but rather as a civilian target, although of course he was a military man and we count him this way. But we have to remember if we can see the figures, so far we can count 88 Israeli people who have been killed, 55 of them are civilians. All of the civilians, not including this officer, were killed deliberately because they were civilians. For example, Marwan Barghouti said and repeats saying all the time, "Every Israeli is a legitimate target." Every Israeli can be a military man but also can be a civilian. As we know a civilian can be a man, a woman or a child. But actually the Palestinian attacks don't distinguish between targets, contrary to what we do and the attacks are deliberately and initially civilian targets for obvious reasons.

Q: Why did the army recommend (the retaliatory bombing) and how effective was it?

GEN. EILAND: First, it doesn't go in the way that the army recommends and then comes the approval of the political level. There is the discussion of the military people with the high officials in the political level and this kind of decision is taken as a result of this discussion.

Now, we understood that the last attack in Netanya that was successful was not very different from the other attacks that were not that successful. But due to the results, we thought the time has come to respond just in order to show first that we are doing whatever is needed to defend our people, and second, to show the other side that there is a cost not only on the Israeli side of the line, but also in their line.

The effectiveness of this attack, as many others, not always can be understood one or two days after the attacks. Some of them are understood only a longer period later on and I hope the other side will understand that we will not be in a position that the only thing we can do is to accept terrorist activities or terrorist attacks inside Israel and not to do anything in response.

Q: I would just like to follow that up. I am sure as you are very aware there has been severe criticism of the escalation of use of F-16s in Israel, not just abroad - severe criticism in the Israeli media, severe criticism from the Israeli political community. What do you see as the strategic gain or the strategic use, the strategic benefit of using F-16s rather than Cobra helicopters, for instance?

GEN. EILAND: First, the criticism is not necessarily solely

on whether it was justified or not justified to attack. Some of the criticism is whether it was smart enough to do it at this specific time or not. This is of course legitimate, as we live in a democratic country.

Of course, when you take any initiative in this kind of conflict, you might be accused later on for use of force that is not necessarily the right thing. But if you take this kind of suggestion not to do anything, then you will really not do anything. As I said, we got a lot of criticism about our targeting specific targets, something that received a lot of criticism only two or three months ago. But despite this criticism, we are sure that these kind of attacks, which were very successful, that we used until a month, two months ago actually were very effective. They were based on very specific information and by carrying out these kind of activities, we prevented a huge number of terrorist attacks.

So it is not necessarily that you have a complete answer one day after the Israeli response with regard to the effectiveness. Sometimes you have to wait until you understand the situation completely. But we have to remember another thing, or maybe another two things. When we speak about escalation, we speak about a number of incidents. We speak about the situation, sometimes we forget one very important element in this conflict and this is who initiates these violent activities?

I would not exaggerate if I say that about 95% of all the hostile activities, of military incidents in the past eight months, are initiated by the Palestinians. Basically the Israeli policy is to respond and not to escalate the situation. I mentioned at the beginning of my briefing the figure of 28 Palestinian attempts to place bombs inside Israel, and this is the main escalation as we can see it.

The second thing, I know that the F-16 was not designed to attack targets in Palestinian cities. But we have to remember that although we use this kind of aircraft, it is still very accurate. All the targets were military targets. All the targets were heaped in a very precise way and the damage that was caused to the other side was just the anticipated damage. So it was not that we did something and then later on we understood that we made a tremendous mistake, it is quite far away from that.

Q: I have two questions. First of all you talk about the strategic value of using the F-16. It is really unclear what that strategic value is valid using the F-16s from using the Apache missiles. The Palestinians say that the Israelis are using the F-16s only to strengthen their determination to continue their intifada.

GEN. EILAND: The decision to use the F-16 was not a

strategic decision, it was rather a tactical decision, simply because the targets were big enough, were strong enough or solid enough that attack helicopters were considered not effective enough to penetrate or to hit these specific targets. So when we decided or we chose these targets then we were looking for the best ammunition for them and in this specific case it was F-16. It doesn't imply that this is a new stage and from now on the only way that we are going to deploy our forces or our aviation is only by F-16s. Actually we see it as something that will not be used in a very open way. The fact that the Palestinians say that they will continue their violence, it is not something new. They say it again and again for the past eight months. This is a very clear Palestinian strategy. There is nothing new about it.

Q: What about the danger of a possible regional retrogression?

GEN. EILAND: Of course there are dangers for that but we

have to calculate them. As I said, all these targets were relatively remote from a very close populated area. If they were not so, we probably wouldn't have chosen this kind of method. At least in this case we hit at the exact targets. It doesn't mean that we can guarantee forever that we will never make mistakes. By the way, the Americans in their campaign in Bosnia, which was under much better conditions, made a lot of mistakes, attacking the wrong bridge where a bus with school children was hit and the children were killed. I don't accuse them. Sometimes you might make mistakes, but if you don't ever want to make mistakes then don't do anything. This is something that might come to be the biggest mistake.

Q: Were you aware that a man named Abu Habboud was being held in the Nablus police station before it was attacked? Do you know where he is now? It would be critical for the Palestinians... why attack the one place where in fact they had a number of people...

GEN. EILAND: First they didn't have a number of people in custody, they had only one man Abu Habboud. This was used only as a shelter and he did not stay all the time. out and when he was there it was simply because The Palestinians were holding him there simply to take care of him because they knew that we were looking for him.

You have to remember that this Abu Habboud is the Palestinian military leader of the Hamas in the West Bank. He is personally responsible for the death of dozens of Israelis, not only in this crisis, but also in previous years. He is really a legitimate target. We had information that he was in that prison and that by targeting this prison he would be the main target that will be hit. Unfortunately, and this is not the first time, he managed to escape, he was very lightly wounded and we don't know exactly where he is

now. The Palestinians considered that place as the safest place for the main leaders of the major organizations that work against us.

Now, at least we can say that this place doesn't exist anymore.

Q: (inaudible)

GEN. EILAND: I tried to emphasize that we didn't retaliate

only to the last terrorist attack. Actually we responded to the series of attacks inside Israel. Some of them were successful, so they got publicity and some of them were not that successful, but the circumstances were just as severe. So it doesn't mean that any time that there will be any Palestinian attack the response will be necessarily similar.

Q: The army stressed over and over again that it is using its strength and that it is not going to be dragged into a situation that will cause an escalation.

GEN. EILAND: No, first of all we don't shoot tanks at

refugee camps, at least not deliberately. Sometimes where the Palestinians take position in Palestinian refugee camps and we respond fire, if there are civilians there, they might be hurt and I know that sometimes it happens and of course we regret that. Our policy remains restrained and everything, of course, is relative to other options. Of course, Israel doesn't use all its military capability, which I think is quite obvious. While the situation is very severe, it is still under control, I can say on both sides.

So the situation between us and the Palestinians is a military or if you want and armed conflict, but it doesn't escalate to a war or it doesn't escalate to a situation where both sides take all possible actions against the other side. Both sides understand that there are a lot of severe circumstances. Both sides understand that probably this is not the right way to do things and at least as far as Israel is concerned, we are looking for better solutions for the situation and not to use our military force. So we do think there is a restraint as I said relative to the situation and to the other options that we can use.

Q: One of the main recommendations of the Mitchell Report is to resume security cooperation. You are saying those organizations are terrorist organizations...

GEN. EILAND: I said there are differences between the

different groups which have diminished, but there are still some kind of differences between the philosophy at least of the leaders of the Palestinian police and the Hamas for example on the other side. Speaking about security cooperation, I represented the IDF in all the last attempts to speak with the Palestinian officials and try to resume new security associations. Despite all the sincere attempts by the Israeli side, we failed in all the last attempts including the attempts that occurred only two or three weeks ago. There is one simple reason why this kind of cooperation does not succeed, and this is that the Palestinian officials or the Palestinian military leaders that we meet don't have a very clear directive or very clear instructions to do really whatever is necessary to stop the violence.

Since they don't have this kind of instruction and since that makes them in not a very easy situation and sometimes they are even confused, of course they cannot do whatever is needed - for example, to arrest some terrorists of the Hamas. Now, the hope for resumption for cooperation in the military field depends on one simple thing and this is a real Palestinian political decision and instruction and maybe a public announcement that this is the right solution for the military situation and if something like this will happen, we will be more than glad.

Q: (inaudible)

GEN. EILAND: As I said, the situation is very sensitive and

of course there is always the risk that the escalation will be greater and that some day there will be a little bit of control. But we are not in that situation now and I hope that some of the diplomatic attempts and the political attempts that are made now to find some kind of formula, first to bring upon a cessation of violence and later on to discuss other things, will bring us to a better situation than what we are now. The situation is not irreversible as it is now, it is something that is still under control or can be under control.