Hamas and Islamic Jihad: A ‘Combo Package’ Threat in Jenin, IDF Spokesman Reveals in Interview
Lt. Col. Richard Hecht says Hamas, already “deeply involved” in the Gaza Strip, is “trickling into” the West Bank
Lt. Col. Richard Hecht, born and raised in a heavily Jewish suburb of Glasgow, Scotland, began a life-changing journey when his family immigrated to Israel in 1983. Moving first to an absorption center in Netanya and then to a kibbutz on the Golan, the family adapted to a new, spartan lifestyle that Hecht credits with making them true Israelis. In the military, Hecht served in combat units in the West Bank and on the Lebanese border and ascended the ranks to become a battalion commander. He studied law and political science at Reichman University in Herzliya, did a company commanders’ course at Fort Bliss in Texas, and worked closely with the US military on several projects, including ballistic missile defense. After considering a career shift when a position was offered at New York’s Jewish Heritage Museum, which was thwarted by the COVID-19 pandemic, Hecht moved to the private sector, working in business development and marketing for an Israeli defense company before returning to the army, where in August 2022 he took up his position as the IDF’s international spokesperson.
The Media Line: Lt. Col. Richard Hecht is the international spokesman for foreign media for the Israel Defense Forces. Thank you so much for joining me at The Media Line.
Richard Hecht: Thank you for having me, Felice!
TML: Since its inception, Israel has faced threats on multiple fronts. It seems that those threats are growing as hostile forces come together, coordinate their actions, and in effect become proxies of the same malign actor, Iran. Is the Iranian threat growing in terms of conventional warfare?
RH: We’re not going to talk about the nuclear issue which is a big involvement for us. What I can talk about is mainly Iranian activity in the region, starting off from their support and trying to entrench themselves in Syria—see some of our border events that happened in the last year. Plus, of course Lebanese Hizbullah, with Iran as their main sponsor.
[There is] the Gaza Strip where Hamas is deeply involved with the activity, mainly [together] with Islamic Jihad, but also trickling into Judea and Samaria. We saw Ziad al-Nakhalah, who is the leader of Islamic Jihad and is very, very connected with the Iranian regime. Just recently, he made a very big scene in Iran. It happened during one of our recent conflicts.
TML: Today, threats are not neatly compartmentalized. [There is] Hamas in Gaza, and Fatah in the West Bank. Does anyone deny that Hamas is taking a strong foothold in the West Bank?
RH: I was inside Jenin in the last operation, I went in with international journalists. And talking to the soldiers there and the deputy commander, when you look at the forces inside Jenin, the Kataeb forces, it’s a combo package of Hamas and Islamic Jihad. And we have their footprint in sight in the West Bank, too. It’s very, very strong. I think it’s also a threat to the Palestinian Authority.
TML: During the recent land operation in Jenin, significant amounts of arms were uncovered. The IDF, Israel’s armed forces, we assume was aware that most of this had existed. When is enough time to go in and take back the dangerous material? Is this something that’s a one-off, or are you going to be doing this periodically?
RH: So, we’ve been doing an operation for the last year and a half since these treacherous attacks coming out from northern Samaria in March ’22. We’ve been doing these operations to take care of these burning holes, we call them. Oh, by the way, while we are doing this, the crossings into Israel’s borders for workers are open.
I mean, Jenin, just even the weekend before, it was an eid [holiday] weekend, the city was rioting. We decided that a line was crossed. It was a story of skill and scope. And we saw that they had already crossed the line, we saw that we had to go in. The sense our intelligence had was that they are feeling totally safe to operate and hide.
And they turned the [refugee] camp in Jenin into a fortress where they think the IDF will act, and we just went in and acted. There was a focus on our intelligence, and there was a robust counterterrorism operation.
We see more people acting within the camp. The IDF has no limits; we will act.
TML: Can you explain the pictures that the public is seeing in Jenin, as opposed to the actual operation that was happening in Jenin? So, from an aerial view of what happened in Jenin, you see many of the roads looking as if they had been [destroyed.] Is that the case?
RH: We were focused mainly on the camp, which was turned into a fortress with bombs, labs, IED factories, etc., etc. There are about 14 kilometers of road only inside the camp. There were two-and-a-half kilometers only which had booby traps of IEDs in them.
We were focused mainly on the camp, which was turned into a fortress with bombs, labs, IED factories
We’re not going to let happen what happened a few weeks ago when one of our vehicles came upon a massive IED, so we had to dismantle the road to take out all of these IEDs and booby traps. And it was a very small piece of land. Of course, the camera and lots of the press are showing it as a diabolical large-scale event, but it wasn’t that large scale. And we’re coordinating together with the PA to get it back in order.
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TML: It’s been said that those that you engaged in Jenin were not under Palestinian control, Palestinian Authority control, so who do they answer to?
RH: So, these are mostly unaffiliated people, acting as protectors. That’s how they see themselves: sons of the camp. They are totally disaffiliated and use TikTok as a means of communication. They are not affiliated with any of the organizations [there] on a large scale. OK, money is coming from Hamas or Islamic Jihad, but with the bigger Palestinian Authority, they are totally disaffiliated with it. And you also saw, by the way at the end, there was some PA guy who came and he got thrown out of the funeral.
I think that there is maybe opportunity now for that to change. Let’s see.
TML: Do you feel that the Palestinian Authority was involved in this? Can you state that they were? Did they know ahead of time that the IDF was going to enter [into Jenin]?
RH: I cannot talk about that, the Palestinian Authority. If you ask me, I can only talk about the IDF.
TML: Critics have charged Israeli forces with disproportionate force, a charge we hear virtually any time the ground forces move, or the fighter jets take off. Could you explain what proportionate force would look like, and where one goes to obtain acceptable limits?
RH: So, I would already look at this village operation also in terms of collateral damage. I mean, it was very, very minimal collateral damage. There were no fighter jets that took off. There was actually very precise use of firepower, also from drones. And again, we were also focused on the safety of our soldiers. And also from drones, specifically on command centers. They also got updated that we were going to attack these centers.
If you look at the collateral damage in this grid, or in this focused operation, the numbers were very small, so I think by world standards, there is some blame, of course, but the use of force was not very major, I would say.
TML: The IDF has made it a mission to speak about the lengths it goes in order to protect civilians. But to be honest, those efforts fail whenever a civilian, and certainly a child, is either injured or killed. Are IDF rules of engagement different than those of other Western nations?
RH: So I’m not going to go into the details of our rules of engagement, but I trust the code of conduct of the IDF. I really do, Felice, and of course sometimes mistakes happen. We’re going into an arena where we are getting fired at from every direction. This is not stones and Molotov cocktails. These are war zones.
We don’t intentionally fire at children. Again, I know this might have been challenged. A lot of the people that are firing at us are 17-year-olds or 16-year-olds. They are already bearing arms, and if it was a threat to our soldiers, we’ll take care of it.
TML: It’s a sad reality that Israelis, ostensibly civilians, but even veterans of the army service are becoming more aggressive, even violent, against the Palestinians. Is there anything the army can do to stop it?
RH: Well, you heard our Chief of Staff. We are doing everything that we can to make sure to educate our troops. I can’t talk about civilians. To start sending in a very, very clear way [that] when Palestinian civilians are harmed, these are acts of terror and we won’t stand by it. And he also said during our officers’ graduation course that if an officer stands by when someone is doing harm to an innocent Palestinian, he cannot be an officer.
TML: Is there anything the army can do proactively ahead of time aside from that? Are there any other measures?
RH: So, again, we’re always looking at [this]. We’re learning. We’re doing our debriefing, and when we make mistakes, we’ll tell them, we’ll say that they made a mistake.
TML: Looking close to home, how is the political environment affecting the IDF? Are there signs of those refusing to serve in the Israel Defense Forces, and is that a minority?
RH: So obviously it’s a minority. When you look at this, and we saw even last night, has someone who has been called up not arrived? The answer is no. And we are doing everything we can to keep the IDF out of this political rift. There is only one consensus, we believe that the IDF can be a consensus, that is, it belongs to the nation as our security policy. So it wouldn’t be to our benefit, and I’m sure there are those who are trying to do that, to move the IDF into this political turmoil.
TML: What doesn’t the public see? There’s so much that happens behind the scenes that the IDF is [doing] on a daily basis. Can you take just a moment to talk about that?
RH: I very much identify with a very famous saying in Hebrew: Ha’am boneh tzava. Tzava boneh am. [Translation: The nation builds the army. The army builds the nation]. The IDF is not only a fighting force, it’s a builder of our nation. We work with immigrants. We work with troubled children. We work with a Haredi, an ultra-Orthodox person, to try and integrate them into Israeli society. So, I still believe that the IDF has many roles in this nation, but again, is not what everybody sees all the time. We do some substantial things. We even saw it during COVID.
The IDF is not only a fighting force, it’s a builder of our nation. We work with immigrants. We work with troubled children. We work with a Haredi, an ultra-Orthodox person, to try and integrate them into Israeli society.
TML: The IDF also is known to work with other armies, [with] the United States and around the region. How, because of the Abraham Accords, has that changed at all? Have you been involved with Bahrain and other nations in the region?
RH: So, again, the big force in function here is the American military, which we are enjoying a very close relationship with. And we actually de-facto came under a new American command called Central Command, which basically oversees all of the Abraham Accord countries, so that’s a sort of gathering table where we can meet, talk, discuss, and engage with our dear friends.
TML: The incumbent government is moving towards exponential growth on lands captured since 1967. Can the army keep up with such accelerated growth given the growing threats from Iran and its proxy armies?
RH: So, I’d rather not talk about that one, Felice. The issue inside Judea and Samaria is a complex one. We are basically tasked [with] safety, security for everyone in Judea and Samaria. About the building in there, that’s not in my pay grade.
TML: Who controls the West Bank today? Everyone’s there. It’s one crowded lot.
RH: So, right now, under the law, right now it’s the military. It’s disputed land, and right now the military is the sovereign inside of Judea and Samaria.
TML: I don’t know if you can answer this, but you’ve been on the job a little while getting a sense of what’s happening. How do you see this resolving between Israelis and Palestinians?
RH: We can only hope for the best [and] for sensibility to prevail. I think that when you look at the regular people, the regular Joes, most people are not on the fringes of extremism. The hope is that extremists don’t win this one.
We can only hope for the best [and] for sensibility to prevail. I think that when you look at the regular people, the regular Joes, most people are not on the fringes of extremism. The hope is that extremists don’t win this one.
TML: Lt. Col. Richard Hecht, the spokesman for the international media for the IDF, the Israel Defense Forces, thank you for joining me today at The Media Line!
RH: Thank you for having me. Goodbye!
TML: Thank you! I appreciate your time.
