Retired Gen. David Petraeus claimed the terrorist group Hamas’s attacks on Israel are worse than the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
In an interview with CBS News, Petraeus, who commanded America’s wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan, said, “This is going to be a very, very tough fight.”
“I almost can’t imagine a more challenging contextual set of circumstances here than what they face,” he continued.
Furthermore, Petraeus spoke about the issues taking place as a result of the war, per his experience.
“There are tunnels; there will be rooms that will have improvised explosive devices,” he explained. “You have to clear every building, every floor, every room, every basement, every tunnel. Civilian losses are inevitable, and tough Israeli losses lie ahead as well.”
He claimed Hamas’s Oct. 7 surprise attacks on Israel, which partially took place in a music festival near the Gaza Strip, are “far worse than 9/11,” when terrorists hijacked planes and crashed them into the Twin Towers in 2001, killing over 2,000 people in New York. Other attacks happened that day at the Pentagon and in Pennsylvania.
“This is the equivalent of the U.S. having experienced over 40,000 losses, rather than the 3,000 terrible losses that we sustained in the attacks of 9/11,” Petraeus stated.
Speaking on how Hamas pulled off the surprise attack, Petraeus said, “The complexity of what they did was really quite extraordinary.”
When asked whether he was “surprised by the sophistication of the attack,” Petraeus, who was once the director of the CIA responded, “Yes. Actually, I was more surprised that there just wasn’t the awareness of what was being planned.”
He also spoke about Israeli and American intelligence lack of preparation for the attack.
“This is a very substantial operation, and the planning of it alone would have been very considerable; then, the training and equipping and positioning of forces, then the actual conduct of it. That all of that could take place and not spark much increased military readiness is really quite stunning,” he said.