The Chief of the General Staff in Khan Yunis: We Will Not Relent Against Hamas Until We Bring back the Hostages and Until We Dismantle the Last Battalion

Last night (Thursday), the Chief of the General Staff, LTG Herzi Halevi, held a situational assessment in Khan Yunis in the Gaza Strip and met with the commanders who participated in the operation to recover the hostages, with the Commanding Officer of the Southern Command, MG Yaron Finkelman, the Commanding Officer of the 98th Division, BG Dan Goldfus.

Attached are the full remarks of the Chief of the General Staff: “Thirty hours to recover the hostages from the ground, really from a hidden place, behind a tunnel, behind the reinforcement, it's very, very complicated matters, and you do it in a way that really inspires a lot of appreciation. We were near these bodies before, we didn't know how to reach out. Now we just knew how to reach out, we reached out. We brought five hostages, which otherwise we could not guarantee that we would have ever brought. We really want to bring hostages alive and this requires pressure, to eliminate Hamas commanders, to eliminate Hamas operatives. An agreement on the release of hostages, something we are pressing to reach and bring about under good conditions, and this is a supreme mission. This is a defined war objective, and we don't need it defined for us either. This is a basic moral issue. And we will not relent against Hamas until we bring back the hostages. We will not relent against Hamas until we dismantle the last battalion, the last company, and we are working very hard. We are constantly thinking about how to press forward.” and the commanding officers of the brigades.