Retired US General David Petraeus, who commanded America’s wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan, condemned Hamas’ attack on Israel, calling it ”far worse than 9/11.” ”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,” Mr Petraeus told CBS News.

Mr Petraeus, who also once served as director of the CIA, warned Israel to think carefully about its upcoming actions as it plans to invade Gaza. 

”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. There are tunnels; there will be rooms that will have improvised explosive devices. 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 added. 

He further expressed shock at how both Israeli and American intelligence were not aware of what was being planned. 

”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. 

When asked what the outcome of the war would be, Mr. Petraeus said, ”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. You can’t walk away from Gaza.”

Previously, the Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations also called it an “unprecedented” escalation and compared it with the 9/11 terror attack. The diplomat explained that because Israel’s population is smaller than the United States, the amount of casualties is proportional to the lives lost on 9/11.

”This is our 9/11. We are committed to changing the equation, to shatter the old paradigm. These animals will pay a heavy price and they will learn that these atrocities cannot be committed again against our civilians,” he added. 

Notably, the 9/11 attacks in 2001 on one of the then-iconic sites in New York, the World Trade Center,  were the deadliest attacks on US soil since the Pearl Harbour bombing. On September 11, 2001, planes crashed into New York City’s World Trade Center, the Pentagon in Washington, DC, and a field in Pennsylvania. The terror attacks claimed the lives of nearly 3,000 people and injured countless others. 

A 33-year-old man was arrested in New York City on Monday after he jumped into a reflecting pool at the 9/11 Memorial, the New York Post reported. The incident happened around 1:30 p.m. when a Port Authority cop spotted the man leaping into one of the two-tiered reflecting pools at the memorial.

In a video of the incident that has gone viral, the man was seen lying in the 18-inch deep water in the pool’s central basin after walking slowly towards it. He then slowly moved closer to the center and slid head-first into the pool. The man injured his leg and back in the incident and was taken to the hospital for non-life-threatening injuries.

Here’s the video:

An Inadequate Jumped into the 9/11 Memorial Pool in #NewYork

A not entirely balanced 33-year-old #Manhattan resident decided to cool off and swim in the pool, which was built on the site of the #WorldTradeCenter towers destroyed in 2001.

Follow Me For More Update pic.twitter.com/P8JdpTuPCC

— __kaput__ (@__kaput__) October 11, 2023

The water was turned off immediately after the incident, and chains were erected around the pool to deter anyone else from jumping in.

“We saw the firefighters and emergency personnel come down the escalator as we were into the memorial. They said everything’s fine, but they were coming in and going to a, like, back room, and we figured that down there was where they could access,” tourist Lisa Bellow told CBS News. 

The man identified as Jeffrey Hernandez was arrested and charged with criminal mischief and trespassing after the terrifying jump, a New York Police Department (NYPD) spokesperson confirmed on Tuesday.

A spokesperson for the Port Authority described him as an “apparently emotionally disturbed person,” as per NBC News. He will also be getting a mental evaluation and criminal charges might include trespassing. The motivation behind the man’s actions is still unknown at this time.

Notably, the pool is one of two at the memorial, both in the footprints of the Twin Towers that fell during the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. According to the 9/11 Memorial & Museum website, each pool descends 30 feet into a basin and drops 20 more feet into a “central void.” 

The Memorial was completed and opened on September 11, 2011, ten years after the attacks that destroyed the original towers. 

Monday marks the 22nd anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks that shook the United States. The terror attack in 2001 on one of the then-iconic sites in New York, the World Trade Center, also had a huge impact globally. The September 11 attacks were the deadliest attacks on US soil since the Pearl Harbour bombing in 1941 that launched the US into World War II.

On September 11, 2001, planes crashed into New York City’s World Trade Center, the Pentagon in Washington, DC, and a field in Pennsylvania. The terror attacks claimed the lives of nearly 3,000 people and injured countless others. 

Here’s what happened:

• On the morning of September 11, 2001, 19 al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked four US passenger airplanes.
• After taking control of the aircrafts, terrorists crashed two of them into the upper floors of the Twin Towers (the North and South Towers) of the World Trade Center complex in Manhattan between 8 and 9 a.m. Within two hours, both the 110-storey towers collapsed.
• The debris of the Twin Towers led to the collapse of all other buildings in the World Trade Center complex, including the 47-story 7 World Trade Center tower.
• The third plane crashed into the headquarters of the US Department of Defense – Pentagon in Virginia.
• The fourth plane crashed into a field in Pennsylvania after passengers tried to fight back against the hijackers.
• The attacks killed 2,977 people from 93 nations: 2,753 people were killed in New York; 184 people were killed at the Pentagon; and 40 people were killed on Flight 93. 

The destruction of the World Trade Center affected the economy of Manhattan and had a significant effect on global markets. While the cleanup of the World Trade Center site was completed in May 2002, the Pentagon building was repaired within a year. The construction of One World Trade Center began at the World Trade Center site in 2006 and it opened to the public in 2014. Several memorials have been built in memory of the victims of the September 11 attacks.

New York:

Twenty-two years after the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States, the remains of two people who died in the collapse of the World Trade Center have been identified through DNA analysis, the authorities said ahead of the latest commemoration of the 2001 disaster.

The identities of the two, a man and a woman, are being withheld at the request of their families. 

They bring to 1,649 the number of victims whose remains have been identified, of the total 2,753 who died when an Al-Qaeda commando crashed two hijacked civilian airliners into New York’s twin towers, the city’s mayor and Office of the Chief Medical Examiner (OCME) said.

“We hope these new identifications can bring some measure of comfort to the families of these victims, and the ongoing efforts by the Office of Chief Medical Examiner attest to the city’s unwavering commitment to reunite all the World Trade Center victims with their loved ones,” Mayor Eric Adams said, according to a statement released late Friday.

But with 1,104 victims still unidentified, progress has been agonizingly slow. The previous two identifications were made in 2021.

When the trade center’s south tower, and then its north, collapsed in a deafening roar, raining down a deluge of fire, choking gray dust and twisted steel on the Manhattan streets below, the violence was so extreme that no identifiable trace has been found of hundreds of the missing. 

The two latest identifications were made possible through the use of “next-generation sequencing technology – more sensitive and rapid than conventional DNA techniques,” the statement said. Remains of the man and woman had been found years ago.

The 2001 attacks are commemorated every September 11 in New York, as they will be again on Monday.

Nineteen terrorists, most of them Saudis, had hijacked four planes. In addition to the two that destroyed the World Trade Center, a third plane slammed into the Pentagon near Washington inflicting heavy damage, and a fourth crashed in a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, after passengers and crew fought with the attackers.

Together, the day’s terror attacks claimed 2,977 lives. 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)