Israel’s Ambassador to the United States, Yechiel Leiter, was interviewed by CNN’s Jake Tapper, underscoring the unprecedented challenges the IDF faces and the moral calculus guiding its operations.
“You got to ask yourself a question,” Leiter said. “A country that's capable of taking out the control of all of Iranian airspace in 72 hours, allowing for the B-2s of the United States to come in and obliterate the nuclear weapons operations in Iran, is not capable of ending this war sooner? Of course we are. But it's because we're taking precautions that no other country has ever taken, had to face a situation of 450 miles of terror tunnels under an area that's 24 miles long.”
Leiter described Hamas as a “ghoulish, fiendish organization” that not only hides behind civilians but actively uses them as human shields. “They enjoy this. This is a death cult. They say this. You have to read their stuff,” he said, referencing Hamas’s own publications and rhetoric.
The ambassador’s remarks took a deeply personal turn as he spoke about the loss of his son, Moshe, in the early days of the conflict. “We do everything we possibly can. My own son was killed because we do not kill innocent civilians. He went in on foot into Gaza and led the troops at the beginning of the war and was killed when he went into a Hamas booby trap.”
Leiter challenged accusations against Israel’s military strategy, suggesting that a more indiscriminate approach might have spared lives on the Israeli side. “If we were doing what we're being accused of doing, maybe he'd be alive today. So many of our soldiers that have died would have been alive today.”
Responding to footage of anti-war demonstrations, Leiter emphasized that public sentiment in Israel is far from one-sided. “The demonstrations you showed are only half of the demonstrations. The other half of the demonstrations are families of soldiers who are saying to the Prime Minister, you have to end this war with the defeat of Hamas, because otherwise we're going back to October 6th.”