Former head of the Israeli Internal Security Service (Shin Bet), Carmi Gilon, said that the war in Gaza has ended, and that the shooting may stop for up to 5 or 6 years.
Gilon saw – in an interview he gave to the Israeli Channel 12, excerpts of which were published on Thursday – that the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) received a “strong blow” in this war of revenge, as he described it.
But he added that Hamas “will remain the ruling body in the Gaza Strip as long as there is a vacuum and there is no one to fill it yet.”
Gilon expected that the firing would stop for a period of up to 6 years, after which rocket firing from Gaza might resume, but he said that “the story of what happened on October 7 will not be repeated in my opinion,” referring to the sudden Palestinian resistance attack on Israeli military sites and settlements within the Gaza Strip. Operation Al-Aqsa Flood.
He added, “In my opinion, the war is over, and the only reason for the Israeli army to remain in the field is to return the hostages (the Israeli prisoners in Gaza),” indicating that military pressure is the only thing that can return them.
Regarding the Israeli failure on October 7, Gilon – who headed the Shin Bet between 1994 and 1996 – said, “No one could have imagined this happening. I do not have an explanation related to intelligence, and I believe that as the fighting continues and more facts are revealed about… Hamas’ preparations show that the intelligence failure is enormous.”
Since last October, the Israeli army has been waging a devastating war on the Gaza Strip, which as of Thursday left 27,19 martyrs and 66,139 injured – most of them children and women – according to the Palestinian authorities, and caused massive destruction and an unprecedented humanitarian disaster.
