The Israeli government announced Monday morning that more than 800 Israelis have died from Hamas attacks over 72 hours. In a country of 10 million people, that would be the equivalent of more than 26,000 deaths if a similar attack occurred in the U.S. That would also be eight times worse than the number of U.S. deaths on 9-11.
After blowing up a border wall between Gaza and Israel, hundreds of Hamas terrorists stormed into farms, villages and small towns Saturday morning shooting, stabbing and killing whoever they came in contact with, Rosenberg told show host Jenna Ellis.
Those not killed by the terrorists were kidnapped and taken to Gaza, many of them women and children.
Social media images have emerged of Israeli children being kept in dog cages by Hamas terrorists in Gaza, Rosenberg told American Family Radio in a Monday morning interview.
“God only knows if these people are going to see the light of day. We are grieving so badly,” Rosenberg told show host Jenna Ellis.
'Israel's intelligence failure alone'
As Israel forces strike Hamas targets in Gaza, many U.S. citizens in Israel are seeking to evacuate to Jordan, but while Ben Gurion International Airport remains open, flights in and out have been reduced or suspended.
U.S. carriers have temporarily suspended flights to Israel, the U.S. Embassy in Israel has reported.
Israel’s nationally intelligence agency, the Mossad, was immediately thrust into the spotlight.
In a Sunday night interview, John Ratcliffe, former U.S. director of national intelligence, told Fox News that America’s intelligence community shares the blame.
“Why did U. S. intelligence miss it as well? Both countries have acknowledged an element of surprise to this attack, and both are looking at whether this is an issue of...is there a blind spot in encrypted communications? Did Hamas change their operational security measures, so they were able to communicate in a way that our intelligence, both the U. S. and Israeli intelligence, didn't pick up what we did previously, or is the situation where the intelligence was there and it was in plain sight?” Ratcliffe asked.
Rosenberg, the editor-in-chief of All Israel News and All Arab News, says there’s no sharing the blame.
“It’s Israel's intelligence failure alone," he told AFR, "like it's our job to know what's happening in our backyard."
However, it has long been understood that Hamas receives funding and training from Iran, and Iran’s ability to provide such was recently strengthened by $6 billion of previously frozen Iranian assets released by President Joe Biden.
“There’s no question that President Biden's decision to give $6 billion to a terrorist regime was not only foolish, but you get what you pay for," Rosenberg complained. "When you give terrorists money, they're going to spend it on more terrorism. That's not rocket science."
U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken told CNN on Sunday that the $6 billion remains in Qatar’s central bank.
“No U.S. taxpayer dollars were involved,” Blinken said.
Whether Blinken’s information is correct, the optics are terrible and the U.S. intelligence relationship with Israel has been impacted by Biden’s appeasement with Iran.
Back in the Fox News interview, Ratcliffe was asked about the current administration at the White House. He said the U.S.-Israel relationship has changed dramatically since the Trump administration because President Biden has used his current term to court Iran and negotiate with its leaders.
"The intelligence relationship between the U. S. and Israel has changed as well," Ratcliffe said, "and there's an element where it may be that we're not sharing information as much as we were in the past because of an element of mistrust that the U.S. is siding with Iran more than Israel is comfortable with.”
Rosenberg: Iran 'honest' about its hatred for Israel
Iran’s terror tentacles aren’t only wrapped around Hamas.
“Iran is the main enemy that wants to wipe us off the planet, annihilate us, liquidate us, commit genocide. They're honest about that, and who are they funding, arming, training, and directing? It's terror organizations like Hamas in Gaza, but also the Hezbollah movement in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen,” Rosenberg said.
The weekend Hamas attacks have created a state of war that Israel hasn’t seen since 1973 and brings into question ongoing talks of a peace treaty with Saudi Arabia. The intelligence failure that failed to stop the attack, Rosenberg said, is due in part to a decrease in tension over time. President Trump deserves credit for the Abraham Accords that helped negotiate peace, the author said, and that peace is now questionable.
"I hope we still are [at peace] but just because we are at peace with more and more Arab countries doesn't mean our enemies don't hate us,” he said.
'It's going to be bloody'
In the AFR interview, Rosenberg said he believes the Hamas goal is to lure Israel into a ground war in densely populated Gaza for the purpose of ultimately turning public support from Israel to Hamas.
“It’s going to be bloody," he predicted. "It's urban warfare, and it's street to street, apartment to apartment, building to building. They've got booby traps. They've got landmines, right? It's going to be very slow going."
The reason Hamas attacked Israel, knowing IDF troops would counter-attack, Rosenberg warned, is because Hamas leaders want their own people to die for the news images of dead bodies on cable news. That will "flip the story" from Hamas attacking civilians to gripping news images of dead Palestinian children, and that will halt the Israel-Saudi Arabia peace process.
"Yes, they want to kill Jews. They want to kill Israelis," he said. "But Hamas wants Palestinians to die in large numbers."
There will be time for investigations into the intelligence failure but, for now, Hamas has brought all Israel together after Israeli's protested against their government for months, Rosenberg said.
“Hamas has accomplished what [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu couldn’t. They have unified the country," the author concluded.
