Transcript: Webinar – Insights into Operation Rising Lion
Featuring IDF BG Effie Defrin. Moderated by Michael Makovsky, PhD.
Michael Makovsky, PhD
Okay, let’s start. Hi, I’m Michael Makovsky. I’m the President and CEO of JINSA. I’m honored today to have our good friend, Brigadier General Effie Defrin, to join us, the IDF Spokesperson, or the head of the IDF Spokesperson Unit, and the Chief Military Spokesman in Israel. Brigadier General Defrin was a commander of an armored brigade. He has a long career in the IDF. He also served as Israel’s defense attache in India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka. And he also then became the head of the IDF International Cooperation Division. And then I think in the zenith of his career, he was a visiting fellow with JINSA in the fall. So, now you’ve taken this position. Effie, it’s great to have you.
BG Effie Defrin
Thank you very much for having me, Mike. It’s a pleasure.
Michael Makovsky, PhD
Thanks.
So look, we have a lot of people on. We particularly have a lot of press people on. And, I thought I would ask you some questions about Iran and then Gaza. And we’ll see also, if people have questions, they should write them in and we’ll do our best to try to ask them to General Defrin. Before I ask you specific questions, because the tendency, it seems like, is also to get into a lot of the details. But I just want to say, I know I speak for a lot of people, I mean, I’m echoing President Trump here, but really Kol Hakavod. Really, congratulations. On behalf of the whole IDF, the IDF, the Air Force, the military intelligence, the Mossad, I know you don’t represent the Mossad, but they did an outstanding job in this war, in this campaign against Iran. And, as I know a lot of Americans feel that you did our work for us. And then, of course, the US Air Force came in and tried to finish the job. But really congratulations. But let me now get into the questions, because, as you know, with all this positive stuff, obviously, as you know, in Israel and here in the United States, you see this, people are asking a lot of questions about how effective it was, whether there were certain things missed. It shouldn’t take away, I think, for the outstanding job that the US and Israeli militaries did. But, there are legitimate questions. So why don’t we get into them? One of the questions is, of course, where’s the enriched uranium in Iran, not just the 60% but the 20% and the 5%, and does Israel have any? What kind of confidence does Israel, or the IDF have, I should say, that Iran has not diverted any of it.
BG Effie Defrin
So, thank you for the question again. Thank you for having me, Mike. It’s a pleasure. I would say I was asked this question previously in Israel also, but also by foreign media a few times. And maybe it’s important to explain what we did in the past. We attacked the nuclear plant in Iraq in the past, in the [19]80s, and then we attacked, and I think it was the end of the [19]90s [sic], the nuclear facility in Syria…
Michael Makovsky, PhD
…2007…
BG Effie Defrin
…Exactly. That was the last time. So those two times we attacked these facilities, and that’s it. End of story. This time, we are planning this problem for years now. And what [has] changed recently, I think, in the last year, that we started analyzing the entire nuclear program, so it is made by different components. So this is why it’s not only about uranium or centrifuge, or this element, or other element, or destroying the Fordo facility, or the Isfahan facility, or the one in Natanz we struck, or others. It’s about the entire puzzle. This is how I described it to the Israeli media. It’s a puzzle. It’s a whole picture. You have to look at it holistically, different parts. And we hit, I think they were surprised by that.
So I will go through the list, and then I think it will answer your question. So the scientific know-how. You know, we killed their scientists, the top tier of their scientists, most of them over 60 years old. Those guys, they don’t have any substitute, there is no one to replace them. There are young scientists. It will take them years to build this capacity again, the know-how. We destroyed their archive in a few different places. So, it’s the knowledge, we destroyed the knowledge. Also, the centrifuge and the nuclear site in Isfahan. This is the place where they produce centrifuges. Now they don’t have it. It will take time to build it. Another thing, in Natanz, Fordo, in Arak, both from facilities to produce plutonium and other stuff.
BG Effie Defrin
So, it was a vast nuclear program, and in the hidden complex, they didn’t know we know all those sites. We also hit laboratories and places where their factories were to reduce all the elements of the nuclear program. So we hit this puzzle, to some extent, on different levels, each one of the components. It will take years. This is how we analyze it, our military experts, also our intelligence experts, from different organizations, assess that it will take more than two years to rebuild it again. Now, Iran is not Hamas and is not Hezbollah. If they will decide now to ignore the United States of America, Europe, the E3, whatever, then they will put all their efforts in rebuilding the problem, it will take them time, but they will do it eventually, if they will ignore all the other limitations they have. I don’t think they will do it. But again, the bottom line is it will take years.
Now we still don’t know exactly how the American attack on Fordo and Isfahan [impacted those sites]. We know they were severely damaged. We see it from satellite images, even from commercial images from satellites, you can see these things. So our assessment, it is heavily damaged, and it will take years to rebuild it again, this program as a whole, to have this knowledge, this know-how. And this is what I answered in the Israeli media, and I’m telling it to you as well. And now there are many political manipulations. You know, there are some political different points of view, and people are trying, some people are trying to manipulate the information and to say that they can build it in a month, in a few months again. I don’t think it’s right. It’s not – I’m not an expert. I’m talking about our intel experts, and this is how they assess the situation.
Michael Makovsky, PhD
Okay, thanks. So let me, if you don’t mind, I’m going to ask you a few more, some specific questions, just to see what the IDF feels comfortable that it knows, and what it doesn’t know. There’s also been questions, of course, does Iran still have centrifuges that are operating? Does it have centrifuges that haven’t been accounted for? And I guess, relatedly, does Israel have confidence that Iran does not have secret sites where advanced centrifuge cascades are deployed. And I’ll just add this, I guess, I’m asking, we were asking this question. Obviously, people want to know to assess the damage. But, you know, I think the IDF had seemed to know so much about Iran and its program, because otherwise you couldn’t have performed. You were killing these scientists in their sleep or these senior military guys, you knew where people were. I think there’s probably an assumption that, given how much Israel know knew coming into this, that you’ll know some of these, the answers to these questions. Or maybe you don’t, but it would be helpful to know.
BG Effie Defrin
So we know, and I have to be modest here, we learned our lesson. We probably don’t know everything. We knew a lot about Iran, we still know. Now you would ask me, you can ask me how didn’t you? How were you surprised by October 7? We have to be modest here. We think we know a lot, most of the things. Maybe some of those elements you mentioned, were hidden, some of the centrifuges, a big portion of them probably, are still locked underground, blocked. They are trying to dig it out now to take them out. It will take them time. We still have to assess how they were damaged, to what extent, but they were probably damaged. It’s too early to assess those centrifuges.
But, again, as I mentioned before, it’s not only about the cascades. We destroyed those factories, those cascades, the factories who produce those centrifuges and uranium in different sites in Iran, and we knew a lot. So they probably have some. The biggest, biggest portion they have is underground in some of the facilities. They will have to dig it now and find it. It will take time. So we still don’t know exactly how it was damaged. You can imagine those big bombs, the American ones, the Israeli ones. They’ll eat those underground facilities. Those are the gentle elements. They probably were damaged severely. But it’s still early to assess.
Michael Makovsky, PhD
How confident was – you’re saying the Iranians are digging it out themselves. So they assume, we assume they don’t know fully either. That’s what you’re suggesting. So how confident are you that when the Iranians know, that you’ll know?
BG Effie Defrin
Well, we proved that we know pretty good. Again, I don’t want to be arrogant here. Again, we learned our lesson. But we know a lot. We are following very closely what they’re doing, and we are prepared – that might be your next question. We are prepared for launching other strikes if this threat will come back. It wasn’t just to destroy this just for the sake of creating destruction in their nuclear facilities. It was an imminent threat for us. It was an immediate, existential threat. There is another element for that, Mike. And I, with your permission, I would like to mention it, and I will answer your questions. But, you know, it’s also I think, the Israeli public opinion, and they don’t understand how big, not only the nuclear problem was for us, but also the surface-to-surface missiles.
Michael Makovsky, PhD
Yeah. I was gonna ask about that.
BG Effie Defrin
You can imagine, we had a very small amount of missiles hitting Israeli targets. And you could see, probably on TV, the amount of destruction they created. Some of them were precise, Soroka Hospital in Beersheba. We have, just to give you the numbers, we have many people displaced now. We have twenty-eight civilians that we assumed that it would be much bigger, the numbers, but our air defense systems, together with the success of the Air Force, as the Air Force went deep into Iran, they were able to hunt and strike more and more of these launchers. This is how it was reduced, the amount of missiles launched. I’m saying that because, for us, those were the two strategic problems, or threats, imminent threats. If only a few, less than a dozen missiles, hit the ground in Israel and created this kind of damage. You can imagine, they had about 2,500 missiles, and they were aiming to double it and triple it by the end of next year. So forget about the nuclear bomb. Can you imagine what happens if Iran has eight to 9,000 missiles, and they are launching it? Maybe half of it will be successful? That’s it. Israel is a small country. So this is another element. Just to give you the numbers: 2,300 apartments were hit in 240 buildings. So 240 buildings were damaged in Israel. Thirteen-thousand people are displaced now. They don’t have a home. They don’t have a rooftop above their heads. Again, it’s a small number compared to what we assessed at the beginning. Again, 28 civilians dead, over 500 missiles they launched, but only 36 hit Israel in urban areas. Some of them are open areas, and we didn’t intercept them.
Michael Makovsky, PhD
How many did they launch again? Could you say that again? I missed it.
BG Effie Defrin
Over 500. They were planning, in each salvo, to hit a few hundred, about two hundred or three hundred, but they were able to launch only twenty, sometimes ten, sometimes only one or two, but the most they were able to launch were about thirty at one time. They couldn’t do it because the Air Force was so successful in hitting them. We have nice video clips of the Air Force hunting them with UAVs and airplanes. So, it’s a mix of our air defense, our multi layer air defense system, and the success of the Air Force deep in Iran.
Michael Makovsky, PhD
So I want to get, you know, I want to get to the missiles you brought up, and clearly, all these Israeli attacks and what you’ve been saying about these ballistic missiles, I don’t think that threat was fully appreciated, at least here, about what a threat it posed to Israel, and you just illustrated that or explained that. Let me though, if I may, go back to the nuclear issue with a few more questions. And then I want to ask you a few more specifics on the ballistic missiles before we turn to Gaza, if you don’t mind Effie. So what would trigger a renewed Israeli military action against Iran? If it restarts, if Iran starts rebuilding its air defenses, if it doesn’t allow the IAEA, International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors back in, if it starts to, you know, operate some centrifuges, then does the IDF, does the Israeli government, come to some clarity about what triggers another Israeli response?
BG Effie Defrin
So we are following, as I mentioned before, we are following very closely the situation. They know they are exposed. They are, and mind me the language, they are naked. I mean the fact that the Israeli Air Force could move freely over the skies of Tehran and West Iran, and also in the center of Iran, and wherever they wanted to. It’s not only again, our airplanes, but also our UAVs in big numbers. I think they know it now. They are rushing to find solutions in Russia and China and other places. We are following them. So it’s, it’s a mixture of a few elements. We will have to follow it. The main lesson we had, and this is part of the reasons why we did it now – we couldn’t wait anymore. We reached a level in which they could enrich enough uranium they could have produced more than 15 nuclear bombs in a matter of maybe a few months or a few weeks. It was a matter of decision. And another thing is that our intel assessed that he [Ayatollah Khamenei] is losing the grip over the knowledge.
As they came, they narrowed the situation. It was narrowing into the last few meters, or the last mile, in which they were producing the bomb. We were afraid we were going to lose the grip of the information and the knowledge. So we had to attack at this time. So it will have to be an assessment that will take all the different elements into account, air defense systems, enriching uranium again, building the factories again. We destroyed all the chain of production, from the factory to the launcher, all the way, including the people who produce it with the materials, including different factories all around Iran. So we will have to follow it. It will take time. But it’s not only the nuclear facility or the nuclear bomb. You have to put the bomb on a missile. And this is a different technology, so we have to follow the different elements. We won’t wait for the last minute. When we will assess that it is reaching again, the level of imminent threat, we will have to strike again.
Michael Makovsky, PhD
But do you think Israel is going to wait that long again? I mean, I guess one thing that seems to have changed since October 7 is, I mean, look at how Israel has responded to Hezbollah violations of their agreement. Now, there’s no understanding that I’m aware of here with Iran or what they can and can’t do. Maybe Ron Dermer when he’s here, when Prime Minister Israel, Bibi, Netanyahu, comes soon…
BG Effie Defrin
…next week. Yeah, I just read it, the date is next week. Next Monday maybe…
Michael Makovsky, PhD
Alright, so Netanyahu is coming next week. All right, so maybe that will be part of the trip. I would imagine that there’d be some shared understanding, but I gather, if you think Israel is going to wait till there’s an imminent threat again, or if they see Iran starts rebuilding, they’re going to go back in kind of like they’ve handled Hezbollah, which is, I recognize that’s a lot closer. The targets are a lot closer than Iran, but Israel seems, at least since October 7, to not have a lot of patience and to respond to the rebuilding of threats very quickly. I don’t know. How do you think they’ll do it this time?
BG Effie Defrin
I think you are correct, Mike, that we cannot wait to the last minute. We cannot wait until it’s an imminent threat. We have to make our calculations together with our strategic partners in the US. And of course, think when we will react to which element, first to signal and then to strike it and destroy it if it won’t help our signals. Now, if there is diplomacy and there is negotiation through using missiles – this is the Middle Eastern way of negotiating things. You were mentioning Hezbollah. Remember that, talking about the different elements, about this puzzle, I think one of the biggest achievements we had after the disaster of October 7 is dismantling Hezbollah and Hamas. Iran invested billions of dollars during the years in Hezbollah for this exact reason. They were counting on that, that it was the first layer of defense, it was supposed to be the first layer of defense for Iran. Now it didn’t react. They didn’t do anything. You know, we sent them messages, underground messages, under the table. They understood it in Lebanon, and they didn’t shoot even one missile. Even the Houthis. They only, the only few missiles they shot and nothing, none of them reached Israel. What about the Iraqis, Kata’ib Hezbollah, and all those proxies they had around us. All this plan to build a circle of fire, or a ring of fire, around Israel, didn’t work.
Michael Makovsky, PhD
Why is that do you think? Why is it that the Houthis and the proxies in Iraq that you mentioned. Why you think that is…
BG Effie Defrin
Well, you see, this is exactly the strategy of hitting the head of the snake. We knew over the years that you can hit Hamas, we can hit Hezbollah, we can hit the Houthis, and have some success here and there, but until you will hit the head of the snake, this octopus in his head with many arms, it won’t do anything. Now, those guys, they don’t have a sponsor anymore. At the beginning, we killed the IRGC, the [Islamic Republic of Iran] Air Force commander. His name was Ali Hajizadeh, he was very dominant in creating this ring of fire. To remind you, I think it was January 2020, when the US struck Mr. Soleimani. He was the head of the IRGC. And now we struck Ali Hajizadeh. And then last week, we hit this guy named Izadi. Izadi was the head of the Palestine Corps. This is how they call it. He was the head of the coordination. He was responsible for coordinating all those elements, the Palestinian elements around us, in Lebanon, in Syria, you name it, all around us and the proxies. And that’s it. Now, this guy is gone. They don’t have a sponsor anymore. The strategy is gone. They are looking at Iran. Iran is weak. This is the Middle East. The sponsor is gone. So they are not reacting. They know the price. And just to complete that, Mike, we are acting in Lebanon, also in Syria and other places. Again, we learned our lesson. We don’t wait until this threat will be big, and it will threaten Israel. If you are following, you see, every week we are striking in Lebanon. Some things we are coordinating with this new mechanism, or with the Lebanese Government through this mechanism. And when there is no answer, there is no response, we dismantle those threats ourselves. So I think the message is going through the entire region.
Michael Makovsky, PhD
Okay, let me ask, you talk about the head of the snake. The head of the head of the snake is the supreme leader. There have been reports, even your defense minister has said some things publicly, I wonder maybe you would mind addressing it. Did Israel try to target the Supreme Leader, Khamenei?
BG Effie Defrin
Ayatollah Khamenei. This guy is evil. He’s a very radical Shia leader. We didn’t aim at the beginning. It was clear we didn’t aim at removing the regime or destroying entirely the nuclear program. Those two things we didn’t say. We said we are going to damage severely the nuclear program, including all its elements, including military leadership and scientists and so on and so forth. So, it wasn’t part of our goals. We avoided doing that. We hit those guys, the senior, the top leaders, the top notch of the leaders who were involved in the plan to destroy Israel. You have to follow the American President, Mr. Trump. He said it himself. He doesn’t see that as a benefit this way. I mean, there are lessons in the Middle East in the last few decades – removing the leader, and getting something worse than that. So, we knew our limitations, we didn’t want it. Maybe it would have happened. If they wouldn’t stop last week, after 12 days, if they would continue to hit Israel, to launch missiles at Israel, maybe we’d go through hitting their economic, we had many more targets. The economic targets and the leadership, but we didn’t
Michael Makovsky, PhD
So the answer is, no, I guess, you didn’t target the Supreme Leader?
BG Effie Defrin
No, we didn’t. You can understand, if we wanted to, we could have hit him.
Michael Makovsky, PhD
Yeah, I understand. And that’s why he was hiding out somewhere without any electronics. It seemed like. On that issue, about the issue about the regime, it seems from our perspective, from here, one of the things of a dog not barking, something that didn’t happen was cracks in the regime, people rising up. Maybe that will happen. But did you see something that maybe people aren’t seeing on that? I know that wasn’t the purpose of the operation. Of course, Israel did hit certain political targets it seemed like. Hitting the TV station while that woman was speaking, maybe hitting the head of the Basij headquarters in Tehran and things like that. I know it wasn’t the purpose. And by the way, at JINSA, we’ve been calling for years that there should be regime collapse as the ultimate solution here, meaning pressure the regime in every way so that the people bring it down. But it didn’t seem like it yet, or at least not now that there was that.
BG Effie Defrin
Yeah, so we said at the beginning that it’s up to them, the Iranian people, to choose their leadership. Now there were some kinds of protests on the streets, but not too many. They became very violent since we started attacking, looking for people who collaborated with Israel or Israeli spies, Mossad spies, this is what they claim. They arrested a lot of the Jewish community over there. We are following it. They are very cruel. They are very evil. They are very brutal with their own people. So we hit Basij targets in Tehran. We also hit, you didn’t mention, the Evin Jail, this cruel jail where they torture their own people…
Michael Makovsky, PhD
Yes, I’m sorry, yes. You blew the door off?
BG Effie Defrin
Yeah, right. It was about signaling them. Okay, let’s stop now, because we can reach any point in Tehran, we know where you are. So it was about signaling. We didn’t want to go all the way. There is no doubt this regime is evil, and they should go. It should go because they didn’t lose their…they are still there. They didn’t change their intentions. They still want to destroy Israel. Let’s see what happens now. There is a lot of international pressure, European pressure, American pressure, and Israeli ability to move freely into Iran if you want, again and again. So let’s see how they will behave. Again, it will have to be an Iranian decision. We have a big community in Israel of expats, you know, Iranians, Jewish Iranian people, also I met in the US when I stayed with JINSA. I’ve met some of them in D.C. and New York. Very strong community, and you should listen to their interpretation of the situation. They are very frustrated because the regime is so strong, the grip on the population is so strong, people are afraid, unfortunately.
Michael Makovsky, PhD
Persian food that the expats make here is very good, I find, if you haven’t had. I don’t know about in Israel, but I’ve had it many times here in the US. Let me ask you about the ballistic missiles. You brought it up already. I wonder if maybe it would help, just to give you, if you could provide some numbers, you know roughly what you think, how many long-range or medium-range missiles Iran had? How many were destroyed? How many are left? Same thing with the launchers. Anything that would be helpful, if you could provide that? Thanks.
BG Effie Defrin
So officially, we published that we destroyed, we struck nearly fifty percent of the Iranian regime’s launchers. I can tell you, it’s much more than that, because we didn’t only already destroy. They had about between 400 and 500 launchers. Missiles, we can hunt forever, it’s 1000s of them. We didn’t destroy all of them, they’re hidden all over the place. The launchers, those big trucks, those are the big, big story. They had about 400 to 500 of them. We destroyed about 200 of them totally, and about the same number we dismantled or blocked, which means they are hidden in their tunnels. The tunnel is blocked, it will take a few months to open it. They weren’t relevant for this campaign, and to take time, they can and will be able to take them out.
So, they have about between 100 to 200 left, with 1/3 of what they had in the first place. It’s a huge achievement. It’s much bigger than what we thought. Not to mention the fact we disrupted their capability to launch or to coordinate between the different zones, between the different areas in Iran. It was a big success. So this is about the– but again, it’s not only about the launchers. We struck most, I don’t want to say all, but all what we know, all the facilities, all the factories, the production factories, including the different elements factories, all the, I know, production chain in the factory itself and other factories. Also, where they produce metal or things like that, that are used to produce these missiles. So it’s a big achievement, big numbers.
Just the fact is that they were ready to launch to Israel, between 200 to 300 missiles at the first salvo. What we thought could happen, we were ready for that. They were shocked by our first attack, you know, our preemptive attack, the surprise on the night of the thirteenth, Friday morning. It was a huge surprise for them. We were waiting after two or three hours. We opened our Home Front Command, started our sirens all over Israel, all that wake up Israelis and tell them go to shelters, because in two or three hours, we’re going to have some salvo, salvo to Israel. But it didn’t happen. It happened on the night after because they were shocked. It took them time to understand what happened. The whole chain of command, top echelon gone.
So, they shot the first salvo. It was about between twenty to thirty missiles, and then it went down all along the next twelve days. And they felt they saw our UAVs and our airplanes in the skies all the time hunting them. They were afraid. Now I can say there were some, in many cases, they were afraid to go out to the launcher to operate. So, big numbers. I can give you some more numbers.
Michael Makovsky, PhD
Yeah, if you don’t mind.
BG Effie Defrin
Yeah. So, I told you, more than fifty percent between fifty percent to seventy percent of the launchers were dismantled or destroyed. Approximately 200 surface-to-surface missile launchers and about eighty surface-to-air missile launchers. So, the first wave of Israeli planes and UAVs hit nuclear plants, but also were paving the way to Tehran. So, they hit their air defense systems, and also, then, the next stage was to dismantle those launchers in order to reduce the amount of of launchings into Israel. So those are the numbers I have with me.
Again, more than thirty senior officials and hundreds of members of the Iranian armed forces, hundreds, including in Tehran itself. By the way, including the Evin. They published only yesterday, they have seventy one casualties in the Evin jail itself. And they said most of them are armed forces. What do they have to do in a jail? We probably knew what they doing there, and they were hit. So I can say more than that, but there was a reason.
Michael Makovsky, PhD
By the way, if I may, just for the audience. When it comes to the number of missile attacks, how many missiles were launched at Israel and so on, I would encourage them, folks on the webinar, to look on JINSA website. Ari in our office, and has done a very precise job of having a chart with all the numbers and also predicting, I think, the decline in the attacks given Israelis Air Forces attacks and destruction of Iranian launchers and missiles.
I want to- one last question on Iran, I want to turn to Gaza, and I appreciate your spending so much time with us, Effie, and it’s always nice as an excuse, at least, to see you. Look there’s been a lot made here, maybe in Israel, also. You know, the picture of these trucks coming in or out of Fordow. Are those, are they, I’ve seen some reports say, well, they were bringing dirt to cover Fordow before, or they, some people worry that maybe they were taken out enriched uranium. So, do you have anything to say about that? What do you think? Do we know? Does Israel know what the truck was about?
BG Effie Defrin
Trucks, in Fordow? You’re talking about trucks?
Michael Makovsky, PhD
The trucks in Fordow. Yeah, it’s a picture of [that].
BG Effie Defrin
Yeah. So at the beginning, after hitting Fordow, we kept our UAVs over it to keep them out of there. And then, another site, following it closely. It’s, they will have to do some lot of ground removing, removal before getting into Fordow, the inside. So I don’t know about these trucks, but we saw some truckers, we saw some bulldozers that were trying to remove.
Michael Makovsky, PhD
So you don’t think it was necessarily removing enriched uranium.
BG Effie Defrin
No, not yet, not yet. We are following it.
Michael Makovsky, PhD
Ok, I’m sure you are.
BG Effie Defrin
We also got the message also from the American administration as well.
Michael Makovsky, PhD
If you don’t mind, I don’t know if you’ll answer this question, but I’ll ask it anyway. What is Israel’s ability, now that there’s been this cease fire of sorts to monitor what’s going on inside Iran. I mean, as you mentioned, Israel had air superiority much faster than expected. We had General Norkin, who’s a fellow of ours, previous Air Force Commander, the one before the current one. And he said, and he had obviously been involved in the planning that on the Air Force and the air supremacy was achieved much faster than expected, than Israel expected in their planning. But anyway, now that that operation is over, are you still, how are you able to monitor what’s going on inside? Or, I don’t know if you want to address that, but feel free.
BG Effie Defrin
So we are monitoring, of course. We have our ways, you know, I can’t mention all the ways we are using Of course, satellites, images, but we are following very carefully what’s going on there. I’m sorry, Mike, I cannot, [reveal] our ways to follow it.
Michael Makovsky, PhD
No, no, it’s okay. But yeah, no, no, it’s okay. Maybe you’re watching the Iranian TV too, you follow.
BG Effie Defrin
I just want to, last time I was here with you, one of the questions you asked me, and I couldn’t answer back. You asked me, why are we targeting targets in Syria? What are we targeting? And I said something about it. It was true. I didn’t lie to you, of course. I said we are enforcing, you know, in Syria, we are not allowing the new regime in Syria to have strategic weapons against Israel, but we were also paving the way through Syria to Iran. Now I can say that. I can say it. I couldn’t say it back then.
This is one of the reasons we kept it told all the time. We kept our eyes open. You know, what’s happening in Syria, not having other elements with different air defense systems, keeping in mind we would have to strike in Iran one day, and it happened. Now I can say one of the things we did there, in Syria, was making sure the gate is open to Iran. So we have our way open, we have our air superiority. We don’t take it for granted, Norkin can tell you better than that on this matter. We were, we thought we will have between one to three airplanes dropped in the first 75 hours, and then more as the days go by. It didn’t happen. We have very good Air Force. Our pilots are amazing. You know, it’s what they did in the last two weeks is something that we studied and learned all over the world. It’s, it’s amazing those people, they did amazing job. But not only the airplanes, again, it’s the UAVs. I think it’s a whole method we will talk about that in the future, maybe. Something to learn, long distance, long range UAVs we used was all over the skies of Iran all the time.
Michael Makovsky, PhD
It was, no, stellar, it was a stellar job. Actually, I’m glad you brought up Syria. If we have time, maybe we’ll ask. But I don’t want to take, I want to get to Gaza, unless you want to say something more about Iran, I think I’ve asked you with all the main questions I wanted to ask.
BG Effie Defrin
I know, but I would say one thing. We are again, we have to stay modest. Iran is not Hamas, not Hezbollah, the Iranian people they are good people, they are smart people. They have good history and heritage. We had very good relations with them until 1979, I wish it will happen again. I know, you know, only from my unit we have our website in Farsi, in Iran. We had, during the war, more than 1 million followers, eighty percent of them in Tehran itself. Only these were the IDF spokesperson. You know, website we have. I have a spokesperson.
Michael Makovsky, PhD
A million followers in Iran were on the IDF website during the war?
BG Effie Defrin
Exactly. More than a million, eighty percent of them in Tehran itself.
Michael Makovsky, PhD
Wow.
BG Effie Defrin
They are good people, most of them, they are. You know, this regime is, is evil. I wish one day they will, and sooner the better, as soon is better, they will get rid of this regime. And they didn’t loss, they didn’t change their intentions. We are following carefully, and we are getting ready for the next round. If it will happen, I hope it won’t. I hope they will reach an agreement with them.
Michael Makovsky, PhD
Yeah, one day this regime will fall, and when it does, I think one could argue that Iran might be one of the countries with the brightest future in the region, given how capable their people are.
BG Effie Defrin
I agree.
Michael Makovsky, PhD
Yeah. Let’s, let’s talk about a little less pleasant of a topic, maybe, which is Gaza, which is a war going on there that seems to never end. But, I guess one of the questions is, of course, there’s news I’m not going to ask you about, obviously the political Echelon needs to deal with. Is there going to be some deal or whatever? But I guess is the IDF– I guess two questions I have. One is, What is the strategy you see for the IDF in Gaza? And I know you started in March when General Zamir picked you, the new Ramatkal, the new Chief of the General Staff. Who’s, I know, a tremendous guy. And do you see a new dynamism or a different approach to Gaza, since you’ve come on board with general Zamir on board? And, I guess, what is the way you think the IDF is thinking on the way forward, absent some agreement, some agreement by the political folks.
BG Effie Defrin
So first, Gaza is a different ball game. It’s amazing to see, it’s astonishing to see how sometimes it was easier in Iran or in Lebanon or other places than it’s when it’s on our backyard here, very close to on our borders with Hamas in Gaza. Very brutal and radical organization. Poor people of Gaza are kept as hostages there. It’s a very, very dense areas, very heavy built, you know that. All the underground facilities, we keep finding those tunnels. It’s unbelievable, this web of tunnels underground, they are keep, keep popping out of them and using the guerilla method and the hitting, snipers and RPGs or IEDs, you know. Bombs and mines against our soldiers over there. It’s been twenty months now, more than twenty months now, since October 7.
What we did different since Zamir came into office. I mean, at first, we are continuing the efforts done by our predecessors. They did good job since October 7. I will say, one thing we are doing differently, and because of the circumstances, after hitting- after the fall of Hezbollah in Lebanon and other and the fall of the Syrian regime in Syria, we were able, in the last few months, to focus on Gaza itself and to concentrate our best divisions in Gaza. So what we did is was pushing Hamas back. We are doing, it’s not only going back and forth into Gaza. We are keeping the ground. We are taking the ground and cleaning it, sorry for the language. We are destroying and dismantling the underground facilities wherever we are going, and we are keeping our grip. We are holding the ground and not leave it. This is pushing Hamas back into mainly, now as we speak, the population of Gaza is concentrated in Gaza City itself, but million people and the rest are in what we call the central camps down south, and in the what we call Mawasi, close to the beach, close to the seashore. So it’s about 2 million people squeezed. We opened, I mean, together with American company, private company, we opened what they call the GHF.
Michael Makovsky, PhD
The Gaza Humanitarian Fund.
BG Effie Defrin
Exactly and to supply them with food. We are pushing food. Hamas is doing its best every day in order to prevent because they are doing now, we have our military success. We keep killing terrorists. We keep dismantling, destroy their tunnels and their infrastructure and putting them back. But the most important thing, I think is, second only to the military effort, they are losing their grip on the population. They are seeing many phenomena of tribes, tribal leaders and others taking responsibility. It’s very painful for Hamas. And this is, it’s we are progressing every day.
Now, this is guerrilla warfare. We are paying heavy price. Some days only yesterday, we lost a soldier. Last week, we lost seven soldiers in one of our armored vehicles. One of them threw IED or mine into the vehicle. So heavy prices in this kind of warfare. We see movements within Hamas as the days go by, they are losing their grip. They are still strong in the city of Gaza itself. The thing with Hamas is we have killed most of the leadership. They have this guy named Haddad. He’s the head of Hamas now Gaza, sitting in the city of Gaza. And now you have the external elements, the leadership in Qatar, in Doha, very stubborn. These people live in five star hotels. You know, they don’t care about the population of Gaza. They want to survive. So we say. Also here we have a mixture of opportunities, I would say, is the internal situation in Gaza we are pushing, and the external situation in which we have this leadership. We can use some help with, of course, our American friends and our allies in the region to push this leadership to some kind of agreement.
Now, we will reach a point in few, we say, in few weeks, in which we will reach our military targets so far, and there will be need, there will be, the political Echelon will have to take a policy decision where to go, if Hamas won’t go for an agreement to release our hostages. We still have fifty hostages, twenty approximately alive. So, if there won’t be any agreement, we will have to go in either all the way to capture and to occupy most of Gaza, or all of Gaza, including the city of Gaza itself, and other spots, because of them, moving the population from one side to other, separating the population of Gaza from Hamas totally. Or to go to, those are little opportunities, or to go to an agreement. So this is the situation as we speak now.
Michael Makovsky, PhD
Okay, one thing about, well just two things really, I want to just say about the Gaza Humanitarian Fund is, you might, I’m sure you know, but not the audience is JINSA did a “Day After Project” with the Vandenberg Coalition. We put out, my colleague, John Hannsh chaired it. They put out a report in late February 2024 and one of- and they briefed senior Israeli officials, senior US officials, and Arabs and so on, Arab governments on this. And two of the recommendations were basically, you should look on our website about this, but about an entity, a multinational nonprofit entity to distribute the aid, and having private security forces, contractors for security. And I think Israel seems to have followed that. And you mentioned it, and it is a way to clearly make sure to take Hamas away from controlling the aid. And it’s and as you pointed out, Effie, it is so undermining Hamas that they’re shooting people trying to get this food.
Now, however, there have been, and of course, the UN has been opposed to it, because they get cut out of this. So it seems to me, if Hamas and the UN don’t like it, that’s already a winner. But there have been reports, I think, including the Haaretz, more of a left wing newspaper in Israel; there have been apparently reports about apparently eyewitness accounts of IDF soldiers firing towards crowds of Palestinians. Could you address that, those reports, and is there an IDF investigation about this?
BG Effie Defrin
There are many allegations regarding the situation. Since we started operating those distribution centers. We have four of them, all around, all along Gaza. Since we started distributing food, so far, we distributed more than 50 million portions of food. We are pushing hard. And not only that, it’s important to mention, we are pushing trucks, Israeli trucks, loaded with food, with humanitarian support, mainly food. Flour sold for the bakeries in Gaza, for international organizations. They have big kitchens over there, so we are pushing food inside.
Unfortunately, the United Nations, they are doing their best in order to prevent it, or they don’t want to cooperate. And even when they do, they drag their legs and they’re not cooperating fully. They were insulted by that. They don’t want those organizations to be successful. Very sad, because the aim, there won’t be any starvation in Gaza. The people of Gaza, the children of Gaza, will have food. And this, we are pushing it all the time. Now, of course, it’s against the interest of Hamas. So what they are doing, they are doing their best in order to, sometimes send few people to military forces just to interrupt it. And then they say, we shot them. In some cases, we did choose, but only when we had an immediate risk to our soldiers.
So our soldiers, we improved all along the time, we improved them. Of course, we are not distributing the food. The food is being distributed by the GHF, but we are allowing it to happen, the convoys of food going into, trucks and securing the perimeter around it so we move back. We are doing our best to prevent friction between our soldiers and the local population, but Hamas is doing its best in order to send these people. It’s like a media ambushes. He’s forcing us to shoot at his people. He sends his own people. We have our intel. Of course, it’s false, fake news.
We have [a] few proofs in which they have the same picture of the same family or the same people died in few different occasions along the last few months. It’s an unfortunately, international media sometimes cooperates with them. Haaretz, it has its own agenda. I understand that. It’s a free country. We have, since the war started, we have heavily recruited the reserve soldiers. It’s a democracy as well. We have soldiers, reserve soldiers from different kind of political opinions, and sometimes they finish their military service and they speak with the journalists. We don’t have any orders, and this is a pure lie and evil claiming that the IDF have orders to kill people, innocent people.
Michael Makovsky, PhD
But do you think there have been a loosening of the rules of engagement? I guess not that there are orders, but that there’s been a loosening, or maybe sometimes a lack of discipline, sometimes by the soldiers, who might be for various reasons?
BG Effie Defrin
I tell you what, it’s on the contrary, because it’s been used against us. So, instead of, you know, instead of shooting at these people, we moved our soldiers back. Sometimes we are taking more risk in order to allow this humanitarian support work and not allowing Hamas to do it. I would say it’s a tool in the hands of Hamas.
Michael Makovsky, PhD
I mean, the Avigdor Lieberman I saw today was just criticizing Israel. He’s in the opposition, but he’s hawkish on Gaza. Why is Israel providing aid to the Palestinians and putting IDF soldiers at risk. If I’m not mistaken, he said that today or yesterday.
BG Effie Defrin
It’s impossible, sometimes it’s impossible mission. Whatever you do, you get criticized by someone.
Michael Makovsky, PhD
The IDF is investigating, though, these allegations?
BG Effie Defrin
Every one of these allegations is being investigated. Sometimes it takes time. You know, I was criticized in one of these and I just started. It takes me time as a spokesperson to retaliate or just say, what, what’s, what’s the IDF’s response for these things. But because, I will never lie. We will never lie, we will say only the truth. And it takes time to investigate, to go to all these soldiers, they are in it, they’re engaged with Hamas all the time. It takes time, the last tank or the last soldier investigated. And we’re investigating each one of those allegation and in those cases, those incidents.
Michael Makovsky, PhD
Effie, I know you’re not going to lie. You’re the most, I don’t know if we’ve had a more decent person coming to our office. I- let me ask you one last question, and I appreciate all your time. And it’s late in Israel, I realize at night there. But there have been reports, including today, about perhaps some breakthrough on Syria in terms of relations. Now, I know that’s also political decision, but the IDF has been involved, reportedly, in all these, in some of these, or in all these discussions. I don’t know if you want to comment on that.
BG Effie Defrin
First we have, our interest is to have stability on our borders. As I mentioned before, we learned our lessons, we are keeping the belt, or like a safe zone between our people and any threat. So also in Lebanon, we kept about five positions in Lebanon, it’s like a buffer zone between our civilians in Lebanon. Also in Syria, we have nine, up to nine points from the Hermon mountain up in the north down to the Jordan, the Syrian-Jordan border. Nine points which we are holding, in order to be to prevent any invasion into Israel.
We saw the pictures of, you know, the other sides of these vehicles conquering Syria. With this new regime, it can happen in Israel. We have on our mind October 7 since we can’t have it again. So we are keeping these, those points. Now, whatever we have with Syria, now we have to keep in mind we are very suspicious, because we know the nature of these people. I wish, I really hope they change their nature. We have to remember those people. Their origin is from Al Qaeda, and they, they were murdered. The head, Al-Jolani, you know, the the head of the State in Syria, he was banned by the US itself until recently. Now, there are movements. Of course, we are following carefully. We wish to have stability. We want security and stability. I’m also hearing about some kind of arrangement, from one hand, security arrangement. I also heard Syria becoming part of the Abraham Accords. This is the future of our children here. I really hope it will happen one day. But we cannot be naive, as we had before October 7. We were naive. We failed dramatically. We can’t, we can’t do it anymore.
So we have to be very suspicious. We have to be on alert all the time. Whatever happens, we will have to keep very, very good security measures on the Syrian border. I really hope it will happen. Mike, I don’t have the details.
I know the today, President Trump announced he’s going to remove the sanctions from Syria. I’m happy for the Syrian people, but we will have to take the right security measures. We saw what they did to the, you know, the Alawites on the shore side in Latakia, the people who were loyal to the previous regime in Syria. They slaughtered them. There were some attempts to kill some Druze. We spoke about it in last webinar, I participated with JINSA. We talked about the Druze community in southern Syria. They were trying to kill them as well. We interrupted them. We helped the Druze there. So we are following very careful.
Michael Makovsky, PhD
Okay, look Effie, you have been very generous with your time. Any concluding things you want to say otherwise, I’ll just say thank you. But I’m done.
BG Effie Defrin
I would like to thank you. It’s always a pleasure to be here. I’m part of the family.
Michael Makovsky, PhD
We look at you that way. Thank you. I hope in this job you get, you managed to get some rest, maybe in the last week, a little more. You should catch up, because it’s never ending, I’m sure.
BG Effie Defrin
It is never ending, but it will be okay. It’s for the sake of our children here, Mike. It’s important. This is why I came back to this position, and this is why I’m here. This is what we’re doing. I will finish by that I’m optimistic. As I told you when I met you on August, when we met in Washington, August, September. I’m optimistic because, let’s say that our neighboring countries, they are not sad with the fall of Iran. They are very happy. I cannot elaborate on that, but I can show you my WhatsApp account from my previous job. You know, I have friends all over the region. They are very happy. So there is potential here for success. I wish that we’ll change our strategic, I don’t know how to call it, our strategic position in the region, for the sake of our children, again.
Michael Makovsky, PhD
By the way, I’ll say one last thing, I guess, General Kurilla, the CENTCOM commander, is retiring, I think next month, and I know Israel is going to be sorry to see him go. But I think he’s been a phenomenal commander, and he’s done a great job. I’m sure he wanted to do other things, he wanted to do over the year, the last few years over there that he wasn’t allowed to, but, I think he deserves, really kudos to him for everything he did.
BG Effie Defrin
He was a very big, he played a very important role in defending Israel back in April and October, and now last few weeks. He’s an amazing friend of Israel, and he will stay an amazing friend of Israel. But his successor, is also a good friend of Israel, General Admiral Bradley Cooper. Great guy, very good friend.
Michael Makovsky, PhD
Great. Well, look, from Lech-lecha. Thank you very much, Effie for all your time and answering all these questions. And I want to thank the audience for joining us today, and keep looking out everyone for future webinars and other of our written work as well. I wish everybody here in America, good rest of your day, and Effie, we wish you a good night, laila tov there.
BG Effie Defrin
Thank you very much.
Michael Makovsky, PhD
Thank you, get some sleep. Thank you very much, Effie. Kol Tuv.