Former Israeli DM Yoav Gallant – Israel almost attacked Hezbollah on Oct 11, 2023

According to a series of interviews given by former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant to Israeli news channels, Gallant tried to convince Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to attack Hezbollah first, before an operation in Gaza. 

Gallant revealed details about his meeting with Netanyahu on Oct. 7, 2023, following the Hamas attack on southern Israel. 

“He showed me the buildings in Tel Aviv from his office window, and told me, ‘Hezbollah will destroy everything if we hit them,’” Gallant said. 

Gallant explained how he tried to convince Netanyahu several times in the first few days of the war that defeating Hezbollah was critical, removing what the military considered the greater threat, to focus its attention on Hamas in Gaza afterward. 

“I go back to the Prime Minister and I tell him, ‘We have to do this.’ And the Prime Minister shows me the buildings from the window and tells me, “Do you see them? All of this will be destroyed as a result of Hezbollah's residual capability. After we hit them, they will destroy everything you see with your own eyes,’” Gallant described the conversation between him and Netanyahu to Channel 12, one of the two news channels that interviewed him. 

He said that in the days just after the Hamas attack, senior Hezbollah leaders were going to hold a significant meeting. 

“We knew that senior officials from Hezbollah were going to convene. We could have attacked from the sky and taken out [censored] heads of Hezbollah, and also Iranians, [Hezbollah Secretary General] Nasrallah, all the rest. The entire top echelon of Hezbollah,” Gallant claimed. 

Gallant called the failure of the government to attack Hezbollah at the beginning of the war, “The State of Israel’s greatest missed opportunity, security-wise, since its founding.” 

“Immediately after that, we could have carried out a plan of attack against the entire missile and rocket system, the way we did almost a year later, in September, and we would have gotten not just to 70 or 80 percent of them, but 90% or more, because a great portion of them were concentrated in storehouses,” he continued. 

In the interview with Channel 12, Gallant portrayed Netanyahu as being hesitant to use military force against Hamas and Hezbollah for fear of their retaliation, and of undermining previous hostage negotiation attempts due to political concerns. 

The former defense minister continued: “When I said I didn't share the pessimism, as I said, the prime minister told me that we would have thousands of deaths in a Gaza maneuver. I told him, ‘We won't have thousands of deaths. Furthermore, what is the point of having an army if, after they killed a thousand of our civilians and kidnapped them, and killed women, children, and the elderly, we don't use it?’ The struggle to get into the [ground] campaign was not easy.” 

According to Gallant’s account, Netanyahu was concerned that “Hamas would use the hostages as human shields.”  

Gallant said, “I told him, ‘We only share one thing with these human animals – we both want to protect the hostages.’” 

In the interviews, Gallant also spoke about the decision to kill Hezbollah Sec.-Gen. Hassan Nasrallah and claimed that Netanyahu was initially reluctant to approve the assassination plan. 

The decision itself was cumbersome, according to Gallant. Netanyahu hesitated quite a bit and pushed back, despite a majority in the cabinet supporting the decision and an intelligence assessment that Nasrallah would soon leave the location. 

“In the morning, an issue was published that I knew about, but I was not involved in, and I think most ministers were not aware of, and that is that negotiations are underway between the prime minister and President Biden, through Ron Dermer and Sullivan, about a ceasefire the next morning. And when it is published, there are several ministers who say in the media that this is unacceptable to them. And then there is also one of them who even threatens that he will leave the government [referring to Itamar Ben Gvir].” 

While Gallant would not share what caused Netanyahu to change his mind, he related that after Netanyahu had left for the U.S., "We get a phone call from the prime minister on Thursday afternoon and he says, 'Now I woke up and I think you were right,' that is, the chief of staff and I, 'and we have to bring this to a decision, as soon as possible.'" 

Gallant said that Netanyahu only asked them to wait until after he delivered his speech to the UN General Assembly. 

Gallant also stated that he asked the Air Force to double the number of bombs used in the attack on Nasrallah to guarantee success. 

"I asked, what are the chances of success? And the answer was 90%. I asked them, how many tons of bombs will you put down? They told me, 40 tons. I said, 'Double the amount so that it will be 99% in order for us to succeed.' And indeed, in practice, they raised it to 80 tons.” 

Gallant also called for a State Commission of Inquiry into the failures of the military response on Oct. 7, saying he would cooperate fully and accept the commission's findings regarding his own failures.