Retired US general says Hamas’ attack on Israel was ‘far worse than 9/11’

Retired US Gen. David Petraeus, who led America’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, says last week’s Hamas attack on Israel was “far worse than 9/11.”

Petraeus, who also once served as director of the CIA, said Sunday the Palestinian terror strike that killed more than 1,300 Israelis was proportionally greater to the terrorist attacks in the US that claimed thousands of lives Sept. 11, 2001.

“This is the equivalent of the US having experienced over 40,000 losses, rather than the 3,000 terrible losses that we sustained in the attacks of 9/11,” Petraeus told CBS News, comparing the two countries’ populations.

The military expert also warned Israel to think carefully about its upcoming actions as it plans to invade Gaza, once again invoking 9/11 and the subsequent US “war on terror” that engulfed America for decades.

“There should be a cautionary tale from our experiences in the wake of the 9/11 attack,” Petraeus said. “Some of the actions that we took, we look at differently now. And there will come a time where some of the actions that will be taken by Israel will be looked at in a different way as well.

“I actually think that there is a consciousness of this in Jerusalem,” he added.

Petraeus said Israel has a “very, very tough fight” ahead against Hamas, claiming the terrorist organization clearly had an intelligence network far more sophisticated than what the Jewish nation and America once believed.

“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,” Petraeus noted. “That all of that could take place and not spark much increased military readiness is really quite stunning.”

The former intelligence commander attributed the success of Hamas’ attack to “dramatic improvement” in the way the group operates, coupled with its ability to avoid and take out Israel’s own intelligence gathering operation.

Petraeus also raised the question to Israeli officials of what comes next if it finds its invasion of Gaza successful, given that the  densely packed territory is home to more than 2 million Palestinians.

“If the mission to the Israeli military is to destroy Hamas, if you have to destroy every headquarters, if you have to capture or kill the bulk of the leaders, if you have to do the same with the bulk of these terrorist fighters, the question is then, what do you do with Gaza once you retake it,” Petraeus said. “You can’t walk away from Gaza.”

Petraeus said he was shocked that Israel and the US had no knowledge of Hamas’ devastating attack last week, when the terror group coordinated a series of rocket strikes and gunfire at communities across the Gaza border.

Petraeus is not the first authority to draw comparisons between 9/11 and the unprecedented attack Israel suffered Oct. 7.

A day after the devastation, Israeli Ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan called the act of terrorism “our 9/11,” while also describing it as a worse attack.  

“We already suffered 250 fatalities, [which is] like having here 7,500 fatalities,” Erdan said of the initial estimates. “We already have 1,500 casualties. It’s like 50,000 casualties here in the United States.”