Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Speaker A: How are there no sirens here in Jerusalem? And we're watching there.
[00:00:07] Speaker B: Where are they? They're going everywhere.
[00:00:10] Speaker A: Like, what's happening?
Sirens and Dimona Arad.
Okay, there we go.
All right.
[00:00:25] Speaker B: It's okay. It's okay.
Daddy. Daddy. Daddy cook. Daddy cook. All right, all right.
[00:00:30] Speaker A: Here, take a. Take blankets.
It's okay, Daniel.
[00:00:33] Speaker B: It's okay. Shh.
Come on.
Come here.
[00:00:38] Speaker A: Take a blanket.
Yeah, go down. Go ahead.
[00:00:43] Speaker B: Come on.
[00:00:49] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:00:49] Speaker B: This.
I got. I took your keys, Tony.
Come on. Come on.
[00:00:58] Speaker A: This is the inside scoop, Jerusalem, with your host, Nicole Jatzuzyan.
So I want to tell you a little story about my Saturday night.
So, it was around 08:30 p.m. And I was working on a podcast which has since become irrelevant and suddenly lost all of its timeliness and urgency compared to what's happening right now, when suddenly I see that the IDF spokesman, the spokesman for the israeli defense forces, is giving his, what I thought was his daily briefing. But what catches my eye in one of the many news alerts is schools will be closed tomorrow. I was like, what? Stop the presses right here. I mean, I knew that we were under. Under this potential threat from Iran. According to the US intelligence, the threat of an imminent attack between 24 to 48 hours, you know, when we were still within that. A little bit within that time frame, you know, this was a viable threat according to american intelligence. And then we passed most of the weekend with absolutely nothing happening. So when and also the alert levels were not raised in Israel, it was only the Americans that said that this was going to possibly be happening, not Israel. And I was like, well, I'm sitting here in Jerusalem. I'll just take the Israelis word for it because it's a nice day.
Then suddenly school will be canceled, not just for one day, but for two days. Public gatherings will be cancelled and suddenly we are on high alert. So, of course, I slammed the computer shut, went running to the tv to turn on the news, and then all the details began coming in one by one. And when I tell you, one by one, one by excruciating one, until by 11:00, two and a half hours later, did it become clear that, yes, Iran had officially launched dozens, in their words at the time, dozens of drones and possibly missiles. Okay, so now you're sitting there and suddenly the world just goes into slow motion. So, first of all, a drone. A drone coming from, I think it's 1500 kilometers to the east. How long does that take to get here? Of course, the news will let you know and you get the infographic quite quickly that says that drones will take 9 hours, 9 hours to get from Iran to Israel. So according to the estimates that it was going to, the drones were going to arrive anytime between 02:00 a.m. And 05:00 a.m. Just like your regular dinner guests that you have invited over. Yeah, yeah, just come between two and five. No problem. I'll be here. I'll be here. And I thought, okay, so, okay, so we just sit here waiting. Now, my daughter had another idea and she was awake at 11:00 watching the news with us. Ten year old, by the way, why are we not going to the airport now? Why are we not on a plane? How have you not already booked tickets out of here? And of course at that point it became quite irrelevant since also air traffic got shut down. So that's 11:00. Now tell me, what would you do with your 3 hours? Would you take a nap? Would you clean the house? Would you pack a to go bag in case of an emergency? Or would you just frantically watch the news and have all sorts of nervous energy that apparently journalists do pumping through their veins when you've got World war three on the horizon? Yeah. So I paced the apartment and did a lot of failed lives because the Internet was reliably unreliable at any moment. So all my lives just totally ended in reconnecting and just waited, waited for 02:00 but at 145, instead at 140. And by the way, this might be the first time ever that anything in the middle east happened, not just on time, but before time. It actually happened 15 minutes early, earlier than they were supposed to. The drones arrived or something arrived. Maybe it was the missiles, because we're sitting there in the living room and suddenly I hear thuds. And I know that it's not the garbage dumpsters, which usually do their Saturday night thudding as they're finally, you know, picking up the garbage from the weekend, because that was done already by 11:00. So what was that? And then thuds accompanied by flashes in the sky. So we ran out to the balcony and there above our heads was like a 4 July fireworks show, a classic, like American Independence Day fireworks. I kid you not. I'm watching these lights flying through and then exploding in a bigger beautiful ball of light and this illuminated flare that arced through the sky down to God knows where. And I, of course, fumbling for a video, taking video of this very thing and thinking, wow, are these, is this what you call drones or these missiles? Or like, what do I know? And why are they exploding? In the sky, does that mean iron dome, which is Israel's anti missile defense system? Is that. Does that mean iron dome is taking them down? Is this what's happening? I have no idea what's happening. And last but not least, as you know, I'm watching this, and about 30 seconds later, why are there no sirens? Does that mean that this isn't actually dangerous? Like, should I not. I don't actually have to. I can actually video this legitimately and not be worried and not get my kids out of bed and run to a bomb shelter. But as soon as I uttered the words, where are the sirens? The sirens went off, telling me, yes, indeed, I probably should have done this 30 seconds ago. So at that .1 of the kids was already awake, and the other two just jumped out of bed with the siren, and we went fumbling down the stairs to the dingy, damp, cement lined full of dust bomb shelter that beckoned us to come and stay within its lovely walls. It's on the bottom floor, and we share it with the other residents of the building. So that was our very lovely introduction to the iranian retaliation that had been much anticipated for several days.
All right, so our little round of explosions was happening all around the country, but ironically, not in the usual places. It was happening also in the south, and it looks like they were targeting Israel's nuclear power plant in Dimona because there were many sirens down there. There was also, I think, in a lot, but I'm not 100% sure about that. And then, of course, in the north, where there always seem to be sirens these days, but not Tel Aviv, not other places along the coast or in the center of Israel. So that was very ironic. But also, and most importantly, right over the al Aqsa mosque as well, there are videos that have since gone viral of these same flashes of light and these explosions happening above the dome of the rock. And al Aqsa, usually everybody feels like Jerusalem, and specifically the old city, is the safest place to be, because what Muslim is going to target the mosque? They're not. They're going to leave their holy site alone. But in this case, no, that was not. That was not the case. Instead, that was also under attack for several minutes. So our particular attack went on. I would say maybe it was ten minutes. I mean, I would.
[00:10:30] Speaker B: I.
[00:10:30] Speaker A: It felt like 15. But, you know, time. Time stands still when you're, when you hear explosions over your head. So probably it was about ten minutes and, and, and then it was over. And then actually, that was it for the night. I mean, spoiler alert. That was it for the night for us. There were rockets continuing in the north, so. Oh, but that's par for the course these days, so I guess they're used to that. So anyway, what was. All right, so what's the upshot of this? What's the summary? What happened? Because then we finally went to bed with fear and trembling, literally for us personally, through a mattress in the middle of the living room. And a couple of us crashed out there. Two of the kids and myself and my husband and one of the other kids very wisely made their way to a bed at some point.
But this is the day after, so what do we know about what happened now? So everybody's had time to get the statistics and figure things out and not just sit there waiting like you're playing a video game and watching drones like, go across the sky digitally until they get into your airspace. Okay, so what was launched? This is all according to the israeli army and the Israeli Defense Forces. The spokesperson, Daniel Hagari, said today that there were 300 threats launched at Israel. He said there were 100 UAv's, 30 cruise missiles and 120 ballistic missiles. He said that very few of these crossed into israeli airspace and 99% were shot down or intercepted.
Now, a lot of these, when he says they didn't even cross into israeli airspace, I mean, I don't know what it was I was seeing and I think for sure I was in israeli airspace, but a lot of the missiles were shot down actually over Iraq. So if you look at the map, or if you. If you have a map and you can look at it, if you go east of Israel, so you've got the Mediterranean Sea, then you have Israel. Then directly bordering Israel. To the east is Jordan. And after Jordan, very odd structure, very odd shape to Jordan, but further to the northeast is Iraq, and to the southeast is Saudi Arabia. So a lot of these missiles came from Iran, which is to the east of Iraq. And they didn't even make it over Iraq. Now, because of Jordan's location, which is a complete buffer between Iran and Israel, Jordan also went on high alert. So this was very interesting, actually, that Jordan got involved in and actually declared a state of emergency. And they also went on high alert and they also scrambled their own air force and were part of the defense. The other nation that was involved in the defense was the US. Now, the US still has bases in different places in the Middle east, so the US was very much on alert. Now, what was Israel looking for? Of course, like where, you know, it's not just from Iran. Iran has proxies in Syria. And actually, this all started in Syria, this particular incident, which I'll get to in a second. And they have proxies in Lebanon, which is Hezbollah, which has been firing rockets since October 7, and Hamas, of course, which didn't really get involved yesterday. And the Houthis in Yemen. So apparently there were launches by the Houthis in Yemen and there were also launches from Syria, but all of these were shot down. So apparently only not so 1% got through. The army said that there was one missile that did land at a base in the south, at an army base in the south, but there was no damage. And the base is functioning, or there was, there was a little damage, but there were definitely no injuries. Now, if you can believe this, there was out of 300, more than 300 launches at Israel, and they all came at the same time. They all converged over the country at pretty much the same time. There was only one injury. There were zero deaths, and there was one injury. And this one injury was a seven year old girl that lives in a Bedouin community, and she was hit in the head by shrapnel. Shrapnel pierced into her head, and she is in life threatening condition. So pray for this girl. Now, of course, that shines a spotlight on people throughout Israel who do not have bomb shelters. Now, that's not even talking about the people in Gaza who don't have bomb shelters, talking about the state of Israel, which actually has new construction going up with bomb shelters. But these, there are still so many people in Israel that live without. So of course, the Bedouin. Now, the Bedouins still live in tents and other structures like that, like little shanty towns. And most of them don't live in proper housing. So they're, they definitely don't have a built in bomb shelter, but they're very frustrated, actually, with the fact that they cannot get proper bomb shelters built in their communities or near their communities. They said they would do it themselves. They just need the go ahead. Now, there's also, I was so surprised after October 7 and covering different aspects of the war to find out that cities like Ashdod and Ashkelon, which are just north of Gaza, and they get constantly bombardment even when there's not a war. They're usually, they're right in the line of fire that many of these buildings don't have bomb shelters. So that's why it is crucial when they say, don't just run to your bomb shelter. Stay there for ten minutes after the alert is over. Because of the shrapnel that falls from the rockets. It's not just the rocket. It's the shrapnel from the rockets that are taken down, that are intercepted. So anyway, so that was really sad that this girl was injured and she's still hospitalized and going through, going through surgeries. So Daniel Hogari, the IDF spokesperson, also said that the event is not over.
[00:17:36] Speaker B: Now.
[00:17:36] Speaker A: He gave no specifics, so we don't know. He did seem to indicate that the worst is behind us, but he said the event is not over and that the alert remains in place for another 36 hours, or was it 24 hours, something like that, till 11:00 p.m. On Monday night. And then he also said, and he always reminds that we have not forgotten the hostages. There are still 133 hostages, israeli hostages in Gaza, and that war with Gaza is still going on.
So, so now let's analyze this and look forward. So first things first. What was this about the iranian attack? Why did Iran have to attack, feel that they have to attack right now? Israel, about ten days before this attack, is believed to be responsible for the targeted assassination of iranian generals that were in Damascus. And they have been apparently very active in moving the players of all of this, of the regional war since October 7. They're the ones who are giving the orders and the go ahead to their proxy groups in Yemen, in Syria and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
So two generals were taken out by what everybody believes was an israeli strike. It was this sort of surgical strike right into a building that specifically killed these two. And they were high up in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which is Iran's, basically their organization, their military organization that runs their terror operations. Now, you look at what happened last night, and the question that everybody has is who won? Who won? Did Israel win? Because there were very few casualties and they shot down 99%. And most people would say that operationally that, yes, Israel won. Now, if you listen to the iranian media or you see the iranian parliament, you think that Iran won and they think that they won, or at least they are reporting that they won because, you know, freedom of the press and freedom of thought is a very high priority in the islamic regime. So, you know, so they're saying that they won. Now also, who was involved, the Houthis, Hezbollah, Syria, Iraq got involved because it was going over their heads. Jordan got involved because they were the last line of defense from the east before any rockets got to Israel. And the United States got involved as well. So I heard a briefing today with Seema Shine, who's an Iran analyst for the INSS. And she called this a huge operational success for Israel. Now, what was interesting, she said it's an operational success, but she said whether or not it's a strategic success for Israel will only be something we can tell over time. Now, she also said the decision of Iran to attack did not come as a surprise. Everybody knew Iran was going to retaliate. The only question was how they were going to retaliate. However, what they did actually took a retaliation to a new level. This was something that has never been done before and was, well, okay, it was done before by Iraq when 3000 missiles were launched at Israel. But for the Iranians, she called this a new paradigm of war against Israel. So, and this is, by the way, the biggest war that Israel had to contend with in three to four decades or the biggest type of attack, I mean, October 7 notwithstanding, she said that her impression is that Iran wanted to retaliate in big numbers to show its military capabilities, but at the same time, it preferred not to cause a lot of casualties in Israel because that would provoke an israeli response. And the regime in Iran is actually not ready to enter war with Israel. And now the whole calculation of Israel's response is going to be tempered by the pressure coming from the outside, which is from the US through President Biden and the president, the pressure coming from the inside, from some of the right wing cabinet members in Prime Minister Netanyahu's government, including Betsalo Smotric and Itamar Benavir, who both said today that we need to launch a huge retaliation. And if I can translate directly what Ben Guvier said, he said we need to go crazy. So as far as Iran is concerned, they did what they had to do when it's over. So the question is, what will Israel do now? Biden also already said, no, you're not going to do it, but I'm going to go out on a limb saying Israel will retaliate. The only question is how and where precisely. Now. They probably won't respond in kind with, with hundreds of missiles or drones launched at Iran, but there probably will be consideration of whether they go after the nuclear facility or whether they do more targeted assassinations, whether they focus on iranian strongholds in Syria or whether they go after Hezbollah. So there's all different ways that Israel could launch some kind of retaliation. But of course, the war cabinet is meeting. And so we'll find out, or most likely we won't find out. We'll just read about it after it happens.
How do you pick up the day after, when everything's been canceled and even some beaches were closed and the country is sleep deprived and you still in a state of war and not sure, you know, completely uncertain as to whether or not the attack is over. And the malls are open, but the schools are not. But anyway, that is life here in Jerusalem. It's, as always, complicated and full of tension and ridiculous decisions that one has to make in an instant. And we are on the cusp of the jewish holiday of Passover, which is coming up next week. So, as usual, all sorts of crazy convergences going on here in the holy land, where a lot of it isn't really holy, but it certainly does need your prayers.
And as always, thank you for tuning in. This is the inside scoop. Jerusalem.
