0:00

The calls for a ceasefire may be

0:02

quieting on college campuses, but they're getting

0:04

louder around the world. The

0:07

level of human suffering is catastrophic,

0:09

and that's why, Mr. Speaker, we

0:11

need an immediate ceasefire. The

0:13

International Court of Justice called on Israel

0:15

to immediately halt its offensive in Rafa.

0:17

That came a few days after Spain,

0:19

Norway and Ireland recognized an

0:22

independent Palestinian state, and a

0:24

few days before, an Israeli

0:26

airstrike in Rafa Sunday killed

0:28

dozens of Palestinian refugees. Civilians

0:31

burnt alive, and

0:35

children decapitated. Israel

0:38

says the strike was a tragic mishap, but

0:40

that it killed two Hamas officials. But

0:43

the top Hamas leadership remains intact,

0:45

and therein lies the paradox. Israel

0:47

wants to take out top leadership,

0:49

all while negotiating with said leadership,

0:52

remains essential to a ceasefire. On

0:55

Today Explained, we're finally going to talk about

0:57

who's running Hamas. I

1:00

don't know if you've been on Facebook lately, but

1:03

it is a mess. There's AI

1:05

spam everywhere, and most of it is

1:07

weirdly religious. Jesus in

1:09

all of his forms are very

1:11

common. It's like Jesus

1:14

with a birthday cake next to deformed

1:16

children. There's also a lot

1:18

of Jesus with ripped men, like

1:21

just really strong bodybuilder types, and

1:24

as well as with hot flight attendants. I'm

1:26

Taylor Lorenz, and this week on Power User, we'll talk

1:29

about what it means when one of the defining social

1:31

networks of our time becomes an

1:33

AI spam graveyard, and who's behind it

1:35

all. I

1:39

think we can all agree the current political moment

1:41

is fraud. But how does it compare

1:43

to the other fraud political moments in history? It

1:46

felt for time in part of that decade

1:48

like everything was falling apart. Young

1:50

people against old people, anti-war

1:52

violence, peace movement. I'm

1:55

former U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, and

1:57

this week, presidential historian Doris Kerns-Gulman.

2:00

Goodwin joins me on my podcast Stay

2:02

Tuned with Preet. We talk

2:04

about difficult times in America's history and

2:06

how its people overcame them. The

2:09

episode is out now. Search and

2:11

follow Stay Tuned with Preet wherever you get

2:13

your podcasts. You're

2:19

listening to Today It's Splained. Tom

2:26

O'Connor writes about national security and foreign

2:28

policy for Newsweek. He joined us to

2:30

talk about the three guys at the

2:32

top of the Hamas org chart. Yahya

2:34

Sinwar and Muhammad Deyf, who are

2:37

believed to be in Gaza, and

2:39

Ismail Hania, who is known to

2:41

be in Doha, Qatar. We started

2:43

with Sinwar. The last we've

2:45

seen of him is a video that was

2:47

released a few months ago, I believe, by

2:49

the Israelis. We are releasing a footage of

2:52

the mass murder and mastermind

2:55

behind the Hamas massacre of October

2:57

7th, Yichizinwar. It's purported to be

2:59

him. It looks like him with

3:02

some family members going through a

3:04

tunnel. This video is one

3:06

of many that we have obtained

3:08

since October 7th. All

3:11

three of them, including Hania, are really from

3:13

this same generation of children

3:15

born into refugee

3:18

families in Gaza that escaped from

3:20

other parts of what was before

3:22

the mandate of Palestine, before the 48 war. They

3:26

grow up in the 80s at a

3:28

time where Gaza is under Israeli military

3:30

occupation. They get arrested by Israel. They

3:33

get out and they rise up the ranks in the group. To

3:37

start really with Sinwar, he's also known

3:39

as Abu Ibrahim in Arabic, born in

3:41

Khan, Yunus. He goes to the Islamic

3:43

University of Gaza, like all these three

3:45

guys do, essentially. And pretty early

3:48

on in the 80s, he's arrested the first time.

3:50

And we have to remember, the 80s is a

3:52

very tense time in the Gaza Strip.

3:55

The first in Tifada, which is a

3:57

mass uprising. There's violence everywhere. It's absolutely

3:59

clear that the commitment is not only

4:01

to regain the Palestinian homeland for the

4:03

PLO, the commitment is to do it

4:05

by armed force. And this is

4:08

really when Hamas forms, and it gets its

4:10

support base from these disaffected

4:13

Palestinian activists who

4:15

become increasingly conservative

4:17

and religiously focused in their

4:20

activities. So, Sennwarz

4:22

arrested once, I think the first time, he

4:24

was in 1982. He has a few run-ins

4:26

with the police and basically the Israeli security

4:28

forces at the time. But

4:30

he really gets this reputation when he comes

4:33

out as this really

4:35

brutal enforcer. And he's known

4:37

for not only killing Israelis, but he's

4:39

also accused of killing Palestinians that are

4:41

accused of collaborating with Israel. So, he's

4:43

arrested once again in the late 80s,

4:45

and this time he stays in prison

4:47

for a long time. And

4:50

he doesn't really emerge again, actually, till

4:52

about 2011. Israel

4:54

has begun transferring Palestinian prisoners ahead of

4:56

their planned release in an exchange deal

4:58

for the captive Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.

5:01

There's this big exchange, about a thousand

5:03

Palestinians, Sennwarz being one of them. I'm

5:07

still a soldier, and I will continue with

5:09

my nephews on the battlefield. I have been

5:11

absent for 25 years, so there are many

5:13

things I need to learn. Hamas

5:17

is running the show in Gaza.

5:19

He's basically part of what has

5:21

become now Hamas's internal security forces.

5:25

He's doing these interrogations, and he's also

5:27

doing something else that's very important. He's

5:30

building ties with this axis of resistance

5:32

that includes Hezbollah, includes Iran, and some

5:34

of the other groups in the region

5:36

are really tied together by the IRGC.

5:39

And that's important because Hamas and Iran

5:41

have had kind of complicated relationship over

5:43

time. The Sunni-Shia divide

5:45

has informed the relationship, the Syrian civil

5:48

war, but this relationship starts to blossom

5:50

a bit. And then

5:52

in 2017, he is

5:54

promoted to the chief of

5:56

affairs in Gaza, and he's

5:58

really seen, obviously, as the

6:01

key figure in terms of

6:03

organizing, in terms of leading

6:05

Hamas in the Gaza Strip itself.

6:08

And also potentially underground somewhere

6:11

is Muhammad Deyf. Yeah,

6:13

so Muhammad Deyf is a far more elusive

6:15

figure than Sinwar. Now, Sinwar, you know, he

6:17

was public. He was out there, you know,

6:19

he went to events, he went to rallies,

6:22

he dared, you know, Israel on occasions to

6:24

assassinate him. Muhammad Deyf has

6:26

pretty much lived in the shadows for

6:28

much of his life, you know, he's

6:30

the product of a refugee family that

6:33

lived in Gaza. He went to

6:36

university in the 80s. Funny enough, he

6:38

actually had an extracurricular activity. He

6:40

actually took on theater. Not what

6:42

you'd expect, maybe from your top

6:45

Islamist militant commando. But he's held

6:47

by the Israelis for I think

6:49

about a year and a

6:51

half or so. And when he emerges,

6:53

he really quickly becomes

6:55

essentially one of the founding forces

6:57

within the emerging Al-Qassam brigades, which

7:00

really start to take root in

7:02

the 1980s. And his

7:04

claim to fame really is just excelling

7:07

in bomb making skills and

7:09

strategy and ambushes. And

7:11

he's really seen as one of the

7:13

key figures behind the scenes when it

7:16

came to these mass attacks going

7:18

into even after the first al-Fathir was second al-Fathir

7:20

in the 2000s. And in 2002,

7:24

the head of the

7:26

Al-Qassam brigades, Salah Shahada, is

7:28

killed and Muhammad Deyf essentially

7:31

takes his place. So Muhammad

7:33

Deyf, as far as his background itself,

7:36

less is known about him. The

7:38

name actually, Muhammad Deyf, is not his real

7:40

name, it's a nickname that

7:43

refers to the term Deyf means guest

7:45

in Arabic. And it refers to the

7:47

fact that he never stays in the

7:49

same place for too long. And he's

7:51

really been a major target for

7:53

Israeli assassination attempts and airstrikes.

7:55

He's escaped a number of attempts on his

7:58

life, but he's also, as far as I

8:00

know, as we know, he's lost an eye,

8:02

he's lost other limbs.

8:04

We know that he's been severely injured. That's

8:07

part of the reason perhaps why we don't

8:09

see a lot of him. I think there's

8:11

really only maybe two or three photos ever

8:13

released of him actually. But he's

8:16

also lost family members in some of these attacks too we

8:18

know. So he is a dedicated

8:20

commando leader and he's almost like

8:22

to some a Che Guevara kind

8:25

of figure. He's become so iconic

8:27

in ways even just his silhouette,

8:30

which is usually how he presents himself like

8:32

he did in October 7th when he

8:35

gave this super galvanizing speech that the

8:37

silhouette is being raised at rallies and

8:39

stuff like that. So certainly

8:41

a very influential figure. Okay,

8:44

so that covers the leadership we think

8:46

is inside Gaza. What about leadership outside

8:49

of Gaza? What about Hania? Yeah,

8:51

so Hania really today

8:53

serves as the top

8:56

leadership of all Hamas as the chief of

8:58

the Pala Bureau. He's

9:00

in Doha based there. He

9:02

travels. He's part of

9:04

the public face of Hamas. He's

9:06

pivotal to their international relations and

9:08

their efforts to have more international

9:11

legitimacy to forge relations with other

9:14

countries, other powers. According

9:16

to reports, Ismael Hania will

9:18

be meeting with Egypt's spy chief

9:20

to discuss stopping the aggression

9:23

in the besieged enclave and

9:25

an agreement for the release of prisoners.

9:28

And he is seen as more, always been

9:30

seen as more of a political figure for

9:33

Hamas. He was actually a former

9:35

prime minister of the Palestinian

9:38

National Authority at this brief time where

9:40

there was a unity government. Hania is

9:42

no longer considered, of course, prime minister,

9:45

but he assumes control over Gaza. And

9:47

then he, of course, then goes on

9:50

to become the head of all Hamas.

9:52

So that's really his position right now. He's,

9:54

again, super important to the

9:57

formal leadership structure

9:59

of the group. group. He's

10:01

not necessarily calling

10:03

every single shot in Eliza

10:05

itself. Hamas has really has

10:07

structured itself in a way

10:09

to function quite autonomously from

10:12

even the battalion level. How

10:15

important, how essential are these three guys

10:17

to Hamas? How much would it change

10:20

Hamas's strategy presence

10:23

if they were found or killed

10:25

or arrested? Yeah, so

10:27

you know, there's no doubt that

10:30

there's both symbolic and tactical value

10:33

in taking out top

10:35

Hamas leaders. But if

10:37

we look at the history of Hamas,

10:39

they've lost just about every top leader

10:41

they've had over the years

10:43

and they've had new people. I mentioned, Muhammad

10:47

Deyfi came in because al-Ahshad was

10:49

killed. So it's not to say

10:51

that these guys have it in

10:54

the group itself, let's say, doesn't

10:56

have this organizational experience in

10:58

filling these ranks. And that's something, again, that

11:00

they say. I've talked to senior Hamas officials

11:03

who have said that we feel it when

11:05

they kill our leaders. They do because

11:07

these people, not only do

11:09

they have this influence and

11:12

this public image, they also

11:14

have contacts. They know people.

11:17

There's a reason that they rose up the ranks

11:19

in the group itself. But

11:21

they have people in waiting. They have

11:23

replacements and they have replacements for the

11:26

replacements. We've heard that a lot. So

11:28

I think that, and there's something the

11:30

Israeli officials tell us is that, yes,

11:32

we want to get these guys. They're

11:34

on our target list and we've seen

11:36

them do these assassination operations

11:38

for some of these guys who are

11:41

abroad like Adori, for example. But

11:44

they're not setting the

11:46

deaths or the capture

11:49

of these top officials as a prerequisite for

11:51

claiming victory. Until

11:56

there's, I think, a fundamental, you

11:59

know, solution to address

12:01

the conditions that allow these guys to

12:03

gain power and rise up the ranks

12:05

and form different groups, even if it's

12:07

another group after Hamas. I

12:10

think it's still a long way from

12:12

saying anything like mission accomplished. Tom

12:25

O'Connor, newsweek.com. More on how

12:27

these top Hamas leaders have

12:30

evaded Israeli forces when we're

12:32

back on tonight's news. Support

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That's V-A-N-T-A-S-E. My

16:11

name is Mayrav Zunchin and I'm the

16:13

senior Israel analyst for the International Crisis

16:15

Group. Could you just

16:17

tell us why Israel has

16:19

failed to destroy top Hamas

16:23

leadership? When you kind

16:25

of get down to the nitty-gritty

16:27

of how the IDF, the Israel

16:29

Defense Forces, defines the war

16:31

goals, they specifically talk about taking

16:34

away the governing and military capabilities

16:36

of Hamas. So even though we

16:38

heard a lot of very incendiary rhetoric,

16:40

destroying Hamas, destroying Gaza, all these things,

16:42

when you actually break it down, they

16:45

want to remove Hamas as a power

16:47

in the Gaza Strip. Hamas

16:52

will be dismantled and

16:55

Hamas leaders, wherever they're hiding,

16:58

should know their own

17:00

borrowed time. We

17:02

will continue doing everything in our

17:04

power to fulfill our mission, free

17:08

our hostages from Hamas and

17:11

free Gaza from Hamas. And

17:13

they haven't been able to do that largely and

17:15

I think there's two

17:17

main reasons for that. One is

17:20

that it's very difficult to take

17:22

apart a non-state kind of terror

17:24

group that has taken root inside

17:26

a very small urban densely populated

17:28

area when they've been there for

17:31

almost 20 years and when a lot

17:34

of what they do is figuring out

17:36

how to defend and offend in

17:39

search of resisting Israeli

17:41

occupation, oppression. And

17:44

also because they're not a state actor, they

17:46

have to use all kinds of means to

17:48

do that, including building a tunnel network. probably

18:00

about 10 feet tall. So that

18:03

plus the fact that Hamas had taken many,

18:05

many hostages, and to this day

18:07

there are over 100 hostages still

18:09

in Gaza, it seems pretty likely

18:11

that the Israeli military has had a

18:13

difficult time getting to Hamas leadership and

18:16

key players because they probably are surrounded

18:18

by hostages. And as

18:20

much destruction and devastation and killing that

18:22

we've seen, I think there

18:24

would have been probably even more if those

18:26

hostages weren't there and they wouldn't have to

18:28

worry about that collateral damage. The

18:33

other is besides the kind

18:35

of military difficulty and the urban warfare

18:37

difficulty before October 7 and

18:39

the criticism since October 7 of the

18:41

Netanyahu government and Netanyahu specifically was that

18:44

he had a very clear policy of

18:46

keeping Hamas in power and also

18:48

of trying to contain Hamas in a way because

18:50

Hamas is a very good excuse

18:53

for Israel to continue on its

18:55

path of settlement expansion and occupation

18:57

and rejection of a Palestinian state,

18:59

rejection of Palestinian self-determination because we're

19:01

talking about a terror group that

19:04

many in the world don't think

19:06

is legitimate. Israeli Prime

19:08

Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pushed back today

19:10

against criticism of his Gaza strategy

19:12

from within his own government. Israel's

19:15

defense minister accused Netanyahu of

19:17

indecision and leading Israel down

19:19

a quote dangerous course. Decision

19:22

is in essence a decision. This

19:25

leads to a dangerous course which

19:27

promotes the idea of Israeli military

19:29

and civilian governance in Gaza. This

19:32

is a negative and dangerous option

19:34

for the state of Israel strategically,

19:37

militarily and from a security standpoint.

19:39

We must make tough decisions for

19:41

the future of our country favoring

19:44

national priorities above all other possible

19:46

considerations even with the

19:48

possibility of personal or political costs.

19:51

So he kind of kept Hamas there for a long

19:53

time and in some ways maybe still has an

19:55

interest in keeping Hamas at play somewhat even though

19:57

that is of course a very good question. counterintuitive

20:01

or productive to what Israel wants, what

20:03

Israel is saying it wants, but as

20:05

long as Hamas is there Israel doesn't

20:07

have to get into any kind of

20:09

peace process, any kind of serious political

20:11

negotiation, doesn't have to take the Palestinian

20:13

demands for a state, for liberation, for

20:15

rights as seriously let's say. And

20:17

specifically even if we assume that

20:19

Netanyahu is committed to getting

20:21

rid of Hamas, he has

20:24

an interest in staying in power now and the best

20:26

way to stay in power is to keep the war

20:28

going on and on and on. Has

20:32

it worked at all? Have they got to

20:34

any of Hamas's top leadership? They've

20:36

gotten to some of I

20:38

think the more senior commanders in

20:40

charge of certain aspects of the

20:42

military wing of Hamas. They've broken

20:45

a significant number of Hamas battalions,

20:47

killed thousands of Hamas fighters including

20:50

senior commanders. Hamas's number three

20:52

Marwan Issa was killed in an Israeli

20:54

operation last week. The rest of

20:56

the top leaders are in hiding likely deep in

20:59

the Hamas tunnel network. You know they've had like

21:01

these tactical achievements throughout the war. We took out

21:03

this guy, we took out that guy, he was

21:05

responsible for this, but nobody in the inner circle

21:08

that makes the decisions, nobody I think

21:10

in the immediate like five people with

21:12

Sinoir. And they really are very much

21:14

interested in getting to those people not

21:17

just because they're the people making the

21:19

decisions but because of this feeling

21:21

of revenge that they need to take these

21:23

people out in order to have at

21:25

least a symbolic victory. It sounds

21:28

like you're saying that it's not really

21:30

plausible to just fully eradicate Hamas. Is

21:32

that what you're saying? Yeah

21:34

there's a few reasons for that. I mean first

21:36

of all you know you have the strongest military

21:38

in the Middle East fighting for eight months now

21:40

almost and I think something

21:42

like some of the US military

21:44

intelligence numbers and reports that have

21:46

come out talk about maybe 30%

21:49

of Hamas militants. Also we don't know

21:51

exactly how they categorize what a Hamas

21:53

militant is but even if

21:55

we take higher numbers that Israel gives let's

21:57

say half of the casualties which is

21:59

a over 35,000, let's say half

22:02

of those are Hamas militants. It's

22:04

still not a number that

22:06

can really take apart an

22:08

organization necessarily. Now, maybe it's

22:10

enough to not

22:13

allow Hamas to operate as a military

22:15

anymore and not enable it to

22:18

attack Israeli border communities anymore.

22:21

That's possible. And I think, again, the

22:23

war goals and the rhetoric were way,

22:25

way higher than they could have made

22:27

good on. They promised things that they

22:29

just couldn't deliver on. And so

22:32

if they had also made the war goals

22:34

a bit more realistic at the beginning, then

22:36

the achievements that they've had until now may

22:38

have looked different. How does the

22:40

United States feel about Israel's strategy with

22:42

Hamas at this point? I mean, in

22:44

some ways Biden has been talking lately

22:46

a little bit out of two

22:49

parts of his mouth. I mean,

22:51

the US has fully supported Israel

22:54

diplomatically, politically, economically, militarily throughout this

22:56

war. So in this moment, we

22:59

must be crystal clear. We

23:02

stand with Israel. We

23:05

stand with Israel. And

23:08

we will make sure Israel has what it needs to

23:10

take care of its citizens, defend

23:12

itself. It also purportedly

23:15

supports Israel's war goals of

23:17

getting the hostages back and

23:19

destroying Hamas. Like it's full

23:21

on agrees with Israel's decision

23:24

to go out to this war, but how

23:26

it's waged its wars where certain former generals

23:28

and certain Biden administration people have said, like

23:30

you could do it in a different way.

23:33

I don't think the two things are

23:35

incompatible. I think you can

23:37

conduct military operations effectively and

23:40

also account

23:42

for civilians in the battle space. There

23:45

are ways to do this where you can account

23:48

for both. You can protect the people and

23:50

also accomplish your objectives. And I think

23:52

that as this war has

23:54

gone on as the US to some extent

23:57

in Israel as well, we're probably surprised that they

23:59

didn't make more. inroads and as

24:01

the election year in the US started,

24:03

they started to lose patience and started

24:05

to realize on the humanitarian issue specifically

24:08

that they really need to kind of

24:10

at least provide the appearances of

24:12

making things better. This

24:15

peer that they just built, you know, it's

24:17

not necessarily going to be effective as

24:19

much as, you know, a ceasefire would be for

24:22

humanitarian aid, but effectively the US has come out

24:24

and said like, you need to have a better

24:26

plan for not only once

24:28

you have taken Hamas out in a certain

24:30

area, you have to kind of stay there

24:32

and figure out who's going to

24:34

take over. And that's the part that

24:36

the US and pretty much all of

24:39

Netanyahu's war cabinet has come out criticizing

24:41

him about. They basically have said, even

24:43

where you have been able to take

24:45

out Hamas, you have nothing to fill

24:47

that vacuum. There's no alternative. You've rejected

24:49

any kind of plan. You've rejected the

24:51

Palestinian Authority in some level. And

24:53

even if those plans are not very

24:55

realistic, Israel at this point isn't even

24:57

paying lip service to them. So I think

24:59

the US is very frustrated with the fact

25:02

that there's no exit strategy, no end game,

25:04

no political post war vision

25:06

for Gaza. And that's, you

25:09

know, obviously very problematic. It

25:12

just sounds like a strategic failure

25:14

on top of strategic failure on

25:16

Israel's part. Is it all

25:18

but certain that Hamas

25:21

will still be standing come

25:23

the end of this war? Some people

25:25

in Israel, even putting

25:27

aside Netanyahu, are really committed to removing

25:29

Hamas from power, even if it takes

25:32

years, even if Israel has to be

25:34

enrolling operations and some form of occupation

25:36

for many years. And legitimately

25:38

Israelis who lived along the

25:41

border there won't be able to feel safe

25:43

staying there. You have a

25:45

real security issue in an

25:47

internal domestic crisis that Israel has

25:50

lost. Israelis have lost total confidence

25:52

in the ability of the state to protect them. And

25:55

that's a real issue that the political and

25:57

the military echelon needs to deal with. Even

26:00

if the Hamas current regime, as it stands,

26:02

is somehow surrendered or exiled or

26:05

removed at the end of this,

26:07

there's still going to be Hamas

26:09

people and Hamas approaches and ideology.

26:12

And it's also a dynamic thing. It's constantly

26:14

changing. So the Palestinian issue

26:16

was pushed under the rug. US presidents

26:19

have denied that as an issue. Israeli prime

26:21

ministers and consecutive

26:23

governments and the society have just kind

26:25

of decided that it's not an issue

26:27

they need to deal with. And that

26:29

hubris and that impunity led us in

26:31

many ways to October 7. So

26:34

that's something that Israelis are going to

26:36

have to reckon with now. And

26:39

that's something that the world is reacting

26:41

very strongly to, I think, years of

26:44

occupation with no price to pay. And

26:47

unfortunately, the price now is very, very high. Mayrav,

26:59

Sunshine, International Crisis Group. The show

27:01

today was produced by Victoria Chamberlain,

27:04

edited by Amman Al-Sadi, fact-checked by

27:06

Laura Bullard and mixed by Patrick

27:08

Boyd and Andriyak Kristin's daughter. I'm

27:10

Sean Ramos for him. It's

27:13

Today Explained. Thank

27:28

you.