One-on-one with Israeli PM’s senior adviser Mark Regev | Power Play with Vassy Kapelos

About this time yesterday the Prime Minister made some significant new comments on that war that Drew quick rebuke from Israel’s political leaders here’s what prime minister Trudeau said I have been clear that the price of Justice cannot be the continued suffering of all Palestinian civilians even Wars have

Rules all innocent life is equal in worth Israeli and Palestinian I urge the government of Israel to exercise maximum restraint as the world is watching on TV on social media we’re hearing the testimonies of doctors family members survivors kids who’ve lost their parents the world is witnessing witnessing this

The killing of women and children of babies this has to stop following those comments Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a statement on social media tagging prime minister Trudeau that reads in part while Israel is doing everything to keep civilians out of Harm’s Way Hamas is doing everything to keep them In

Harm’s Way Israel provides civilians in Gaza humanitarian Ian corridors and safe zones Hamas prevents them from leaving at gunpoint the statement goes on to say it is Hamas not Israel that should be held accountable for committing a double War crime targeting civilians while hiding behind civilians the forces of

Civilization must back Israel in defeating Hamas barbarism now Netanyahu has many critics both within Israel and outside of it but even his most bitter rival the leader of the opposition backed him up on this yir laid saying in part on social media prime minister Trudeau Israel is defending itself in difficult conditions

Against a brutal terrorist organization if Canada ever found itself under a sustain and brutal attack like the one we face now you would find Israel by your side we expect the same support now we did ask prime minister Justin Trudeau’s office for our response to the statement from Israel they said to us

However there was nothing to add to the prime minister’s comments from yesterday for more on all of this let’s bring in Mark regive he’s a senior adviser to prime minister Netanyahu he’s joining us from Tel Aviv hi Mr reave great pleasure to welcome you to our program thank you for making

The time my pleasure I wanted to start off on the comments made about this time yesterday uh by the prime minister of this country uh prime minister Netanyahu took to social media to respond to those comments I wondered have you spoken to prime minister Netanyahu about his own

Reaction to what prime minister Trudeau said and why did he feel compelled to respond well I’m not sure it was a direct response I think it was something more General uh uh uh uh it doesn’t have to be personal uh when we talk about the terrible tragedy in Gaza and of course

There are innocent people caught up in the crossfire between the Israeli Defense Forces and Hamas it’s clear that Hamas Bears responsibility for the casualties first and foremost because they have taken a deliberate strategy to use gazan civilians including the children of Gaza as a shield for their

War Machine we see that in the incidents of the hospital at been in the news over the last few days that they’ve built their military structure deliberately under a hospital and there and thereby endangering all the civilians I I just want to clarify before I ask you a few questions about

What you just said um because the the prime minister’s uh prime minister Netanyahu I should clarify his statement on Twitter did specifically call out prime minister Trudeau he did tag him so when you say it’s more General you’re you’re saying it it was not in response

To what the Prime Minister said well I don’t want to go beyond the Tweet but it’s clear our position is that we are doing everything possible to try to keep civilians out of Harm’s Way while Hamas is doing the opposite deliberately endangering Gaz and civilians as part of

Their strategy and I think that has to be understood in the International Community do you feel like there is a lack of that understanding because I I I will say I mean I’ve listened to the Prime Minister here speak on many occasions about this he has other than yesterday always started off by

Condemning Hamas as a terrorist organization by condemning The Taking of about 240 hostages and demanding that they be released and then talking about the Rules of Engagement essentially and potential concern about uh not exercising enough restraint but it is always you know the precursor to it always is a condemnation of what Hamas

Has done so far what is so wrong with that statement so uh of course Hamas should be condemned for for its brutal attack on the Israeli people for the massacre of October 7th for the rapes the beheadings uh the burning of babies alive the the mass shooting of the young people at the

Open air Music Festival uh the attack on civilian communities the butchering of entire families and the taking of hostages Kamas must be condemned for all of that but Kamas also needs to be D demned for the ongoing tragedy in Gaza that we face today uh because Hamas has deliberately adopted policies and it’s

Not just the government of Israel has said so the government of the United States the government of Great Britain the European Union has said so that Hamas has deliberately exploited and abused the gazan civilian population as a human shield for its War Machine and in so doing when one talks about the

Terrible tragedy that’s happening in Gaza today uh this is hamas’s responsibility can can two things be true Mr regive and I and ask with great respect can all of what you just said be true and also there exist uh Agency on Israel’s part right yes Hamas can be

Using uh humans as as human Shields as you put and have put people innocent civilians in the the situation that they’re in but does that does that not mean that Israel has some agency as well here if we’re isn’t there a level of responsibility on Israel’s part as well

Of course as a democratic country like Canada Israel is making a maximum effort to keep civilians out of the crossfire uh and that’s the reason that for for three and a half weeks we’ve been calling on people to leave the north where we knew there would be very tough

Fighting between us and Hamas and we asked people to to relocate to the to the southern part of the Gaza Strip and and the truth is gazans heeded Our advice and over a million million of them voted with their feet and left the combat zone now while we were asking

Civilians to leave and not to be in H’s way Hamas was demanding and ordering people to stay even at gunpoint and and and so civilians that remained in the area at hamas’s instruction they were endangered so if Israel’s making a maximum effort to get people out of

Hamway and Kamas is doing the opposite where should the finger be pointed when it comes to the hospital that was at the center of and you brought it up earlier I I think formed the impetus for a lot of at least how the Prime Minister here presented his comments I’m wondering if

You could offer some clarification tonight because I’m not there uh to be completely straightforward we are you know reading all these reports of the degree to which the Israeli uh military forces have surrounded it or taken it like all sorts of different language and

And so I thought I I would ask you very bluntly is the IDF now in control of the elifa hospital no we’re not we’re not all over the compound uh we’re in some places a large part of the hospital we haven’t we haven’t entered we only entered certain

Sections of the the structure where we had specific intelligence information uh we will continue however our operation it is still ongoing and the fact of the matter is in this largest hospital in the gasa strip there alifa Hospital underneath it there is a command and control headquarters of Hamas and

Spreading from that is a network of of underground tunnels that as one of the hostages who was released an 85y old woman who was released in the first week of this conflict uh she reported it was like a spiderweb of tunnels that lead to Arms Depots and missile launching sites

And other elements of hamas’s Terror machine and all this Hamas has deliberately placed under the hospital now this is not just what the Israeli government says based on our our intelligence the Americans uh earlier this week said that the Pentagon said the White House said that yes Hamas does

Have a military infrastructure under this hospital and the truth is even the people of Gaza know it it’s it’s the worst kept secret in Gaza City everyone knows it they just can’t say so publicly especially not to Western journalist because Kamas doesn’t like it it has a very authoritarian and brutal rule in

The G strip and it doesn’t appreciate it when people locals speak out of turn to to to International media so when you ask people if if someone from CT CTV goes and asks one of the doctors in the hospital is there Kamas here of course they say there’s no Kamas here if they

Said the truth they would face retribution but that’s one of the facts of living in an authoritarian regime people can’t say what they know to be true so let me ask you the facts as you know them do you believe there are Hamas operatives right now in the hospital and

Under the hospital and do you believe they are actively participating at this moment in the efforts against Israel it it’s quite possible at the moment they’re running and hiding from from our forces who are engaging with them yes but that as of the start of our operation that they were there and they

Were positioned there and they were using their infrastructure they spent literally millions of dollars to invest in building that very complex and elaborate military structure the network of tunnels from the hospital and it it’s a it’s a from our point of view it’s a legitimate military Target because our

Goal is to destroy hamas’s military machine of course in doing so we will continue to be as Surgical as is humanly possible distinguishing between the civilian population who we’re not targeting and the Hamas murderers who we indeed want to neutralize I I just want to Circle back to the original question

Though because I’m not sure uh the specifics of what you said you you do you do you think that they have left now that the Israeli Army is there or do you believe Hamas is still operating in and underneath the alifa hospital so it’s an ongoing operation at the moment that

We’re in a period where the what the experts call the fog of war and so I can’t give you an unequivocal answer answer can I ask again with with again a lot of a lot of deference to The Plight that Israel faces right now the intelligence that you talk about both

From Israel and from the United States do you understand the certain level of skepticism that would greet that intelligence given the failure the intelligence failure that occurred on October 7th on Israel’s part and then the fact that us intelligence has failed it in in its efforts in the Middle East

I’m thinking back 20 years now to Weapons of Mass destruction in the past there is a a healthy dose of skepticism that greets that intelligence as you present it right now because I know what you’re talking about with Hamas but because of what we are hearing from

Health people who work in healthc care in the in that hospital and around it from Canadians for example who have left Gaza and told us what it was like inside there there is skepticism greeted with the the the the facts as you present them based on your intelligence so all right skepticism is

Always a good thing but I’d urge you to be equally skeptical of the people there who say no we never saw any Kamas in the hospital because that’s clearly not true everyone in that part of Gaza knows that they can’t say so publicly is a fact and and if you’ve worked in authoritarian

Regimes you know that people can’t speak freely and Hamas definitely runs an authoritarian regime there in Gaza but I I’d say the following you saw and the world saw the sort of gruesome violence that Kamas was capable of when they attacked Israel right just look at the

Way they they M babies I myself have seen too many pictures of babies in carts ruled with bullet holes yes these are people who will murder babies these are people who kidnapped babies and took them back to Gaza so people who do that sort of thing have you any qums

Whatsoever I mean sorry do you have any doubt whatsoever that they have any quarms about uh brutalizing their own civilian population if they can do it to us they’ll do it to anyone else as long as they see it as advancing their crazy extremist agenda and that is what Hamas

Is all about for them the people of Gaza the civilians of Gaza are just Tools in normal countries like Canada like Israel the job of the military is to protect the civilian population that’s why we have armed forces to protect our people Hamas inverts that they say the job of

The civilians of Gaza is to protect their Terror military machine they practically say so that publicly when they say they’re willing to sacrifice literally hundreds of thousands of their people on the altar of their crazy extremist agenda so what Mr Reg does that mean then for the idf’s for example

Military operation in that hospital is there ever for going to be the ability for it to operate and help those people as you describe who have been put In Harm’s Way by Hamas so we will continue as do all Democratic countries make a distinction between combatants and non-combatants Hamas is our enemy we

Will Target them the civilians are not the target of our operation and we will bet do our best to safe guard them that’s what that’s what that’s that’s our rule I’d like there to be no casualties no civilian casualties whatsoever in this conflict one civilian casualty is one too many but I’m also

Realistic enough to know that there hasn’t been a conflict in modern history where you haven’t had civilians caught up in the crossfire it’s our job as a democ democratic country to minimalize that as much as is possible and we are doing so but but with respects sir that

Doesn’t answer the question of how far this operation is going to go in alifa and whether or not it will ever be able to operate again and help the people as you point out who have been put In Harm’s Way by Hamas well when this operation is over I’m hopeful that andas

Has been defeated that alifa will will be able to return to being a hospital and and serving the the population of the northern Gus troop as it has done before Kamas turned it into a military a zone of conflict and and the truth is if we can take the larger

Picture when this conflict is over and we have defeated humas as we surely will that’s not just good for Israel who for the Israeli people who don’t have to live in fear of terrorists crossing the border in the middle of the night and butchering their children but it’s

Ultimately also good for the people of Gaza who surely deserve better than this regime that’s been in power there for 16 years this Terror machine what is it B the people of Gaza poverty misery Bloodshed uh uh what’s one positive thing that Hamas has bought the people of Gaza in their 16-year

Tyrannical rule Mr if I’m out of time I have to leave it there I appreciate your time very much this evening thank you thank you for having me

Mark Regev, a senior advisor to Israeli PM Netanyahu, says they are doing everything possible to keep civilians out of harm’s way.
#Israel #benjaminnetanyahu

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