‘Our 9/11’: Israeli ambassador to the U.S. discusses reaction to Hamas attack

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• John Yang:

  It is impossible to understate the devastating effect yesterday's attack had on Israel, Israeli citizens and their leaders. Michael Herzog is the Israeli ambassador to the United States. Mr. Ambassador, thanks for joining us. And first let me begin by offering our condolences on the loss of life in Israel yesterday.

  And I wonder I'll see if we could put it into perspective a little bit because I found that when things happen in Israel, it's such a relatively small country. Everyone knows someone or know someone who knows someone who's affected by this.

  Michael Herzog, Israeli's Ambassador to the U.S.: Thank you very much for your condolences. And yes, this is a serious blow to the State of Israel. Hamas wage war in Israel yesterday an unprovoked attack on civilians. They fired thousands of rockets at Israeli populated centers, and then they breach the border fence and sent in hundreds of armed terrorist infiltrated almost all the border towns and Kibbutzim and basically murdered hundreds of people.

  Right now the official count is at least 700. But the number we're still counting and numbers will probably go up. There was a beach party not far away from the border in Gaza, we just counted 260 bodies. This is unimaginable. This is someone said our 911. This is war. And we have to consider it as a war.

• John Yang:

  The question and much like the question that was asked in America after 911 is how could this happen? How could Israeli intelligence miss the planning for this? Underestimate the capabilities of Hamas to do this? And also how are so many militants able to breach that barrier?

• Michael Herzog:

  Well, obviously, there was a serious element of surprise, but I believe the time will come where we will deeply investigate that. Right now we are at war. And we have to fight this war and win that war. The way they entered our territory was breaching the border fence with explosive charges. Using target power glades, and also through the sea.

  We encountered and killed the huge number of terrorists inside our territory. And yes, the time will come to look into what exactly happened but right now we are at war.

• John Yang:

  The time will come but how can Israelis trust the government after such a failure, failure and intelligence and preparation?

• Michael Herzog:

  It's not a matter about trusting or not trusting the government. It's a professional question of how come people were surprised by this assault probably some misconceptions but again, the time will come to discuss this. Right now we have to fight the war.

• John Yang:

  And as I understand there's still some fighting in some cities in southern Israel right now. And Hamas says that they're able to send in fresh fighters and bring out tired ones. Is this raises the question does Israel really have control of southern Israel right now?

• Michael Herzog:

  We are nearly in complete control. We eliminated most of their cells inside our territory. That still one two flashpoints. And, but I expect that sooner perhaps by the end of the day, we will control all of our territory and nobody will be able to penetrate. The IDF is right now sealing the border once again.

• John Yang:

  And the Prime Minister and other military leaders in the IDF have promised vengeance on Gaza for this. How good, you know, the last time there was a major ground operation in Gaza. The United Nations estimated that more than 1,400 Palestinian civilians were killed, including more than 500 children. How can you protect or minimize the loss of Palestinian civilian life?

• Michael Herzog:

  First of all, I would be very careful about these numbers. These numbers are usually conflated, and usually the Palestinians they base themselves on Palestinian sources in Gaza. They include hundreds of terrorist who are killed while trying to kill our citizens. So let's be very careful about these numbers. I would — I think we should give it time to understand what's happening.

  The fact of the matter is Hamas hides its military capabilities behind civilian population. They are using civilian population as human shields. What we are doing, we do not target civilians when we have — we target militants terrorist. And when we do that, and when they nest in civilian populated areas, we send warning to the population to evacuate the area because this is a war zone. And that's with all the way we've always operated. We are very different than there.

• John Yang:

  The former U.S. ambassador to Israel, Martin Indyk pointed out that he, in his opinion, the Netanyahu government was more interested in protecting settlers on the West Bank than they were in protecting the kibbutz near Gaza. What do you say to that?

• Michael Herzog:

  I don't bite the tone. I think the issue in the border of Gaza was not the number of troops but it was the element of surprise. I think my advice to everybody. This is not the time to politicize the discussion for.

• John Yang:

  Mr. Ambassador, thank you very much.

• Michael Herzog:

  Thank you very much.

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