Hezbollah is Iran’s direct proxy, and is even stronger than Hamas

Intelligence Minister Gila Gamliel: No Gaza leader can be worse

Intelligence

Gamliel told The Jerusalem

that Israel’s intelligence services understand that Hezbollah acts according to Iran’s directives – even more precisely than with Gaza.

Meaning, even though Hamas also has massive Iranian funding, logistics support, training, and is regularly pressed by Iran to provoke Israel, Hezbollah is “even more a direct proxy of Iran, and Iran’s direct involvement with them is even greater than with Gaza,” said Gamliel.

Palestinian Islamic Jihad is also a direct proxy of Iran, but Hezbollah was the first, and fully rules Lebanon, whereas the PIJ must also contend with Hamas strategies and policies as a rival group.

All of this means that, after

Hamas is dealt with, Israel will still need to eventually return its attention to the Iran-Hezbollah tandem.

Part of Gamliel’s role as intelligence minister is to hold regular meetings with top intelligence and defense officials, provide oversight over their budget and inter-agency sharing, and receive cabinet updates from those top officials.

“Hamas cannot be allowed to continue to exist. We must give a permanent blow, no military capabilities, and no political rule,” she said.

Pressed on what the consequences would be for who would run and manage Gaza if not Hamas, she posited that whoever that might be could not possibly be worse. “There is no other option” other than to topple the terrorist group from controlling Gaza.

“Hamas declared war against Israel in an extremely brutal and unprecedented style, like ISIS. The horrors are inconceivable. There is the cutting off the heads of children. Tying people up and then killing them. Raping women on video. They attacked elderly civilians, Holocaust survivors were murdered or taken as hostages. Babies were left without parents,” she said.

Gamliel has attended a number of funerals and met with families of hostages. She said that she was horrified about what Hamas did “to young people who came to have a party. They committed war crimes at the worst levels.

“We will respond with power and return security to all of Israel. We will win,” she said, adding that the war has united the IDF and led to reinvigorating the reserves, which only a short time ago were beset by the controversy over the now-frozen judicial overhaul legislation.