Press Briefing by IDF Spokesperson, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, February 15th , 2024

Good evening,

We continue to maintain a very high level of readiness in the north.
Following a missile strike from Lebanon that hit the Northern Command base yesterday, First Sergeant Omer Sara Benjo was killed and several other soldiers were injured. Our hearts are with the families during this difficult time.

In response to the launches towards Kiryat Shmona and Safed which also affected civilians, we conducted widespread strikes in Lebanon against military sites, Hezbollah operatives, and infrastructure of the Radwan Forces- we will respond severely to attacks against settlements and civilians.
We targeted a key commander in the Radwan Forces, Ali Muhammad Aldbas, his deputy and other terrorists. Aldbas was a key figure in Hezbollah, responsible for planning terrorist activities, and together with Wisam Atwi, who was commander of the Radwan Forces, planned the terrorist attack at the Megiddo Junction in March 2023.

We are highly prepared in the north, in both defense and offense, ready to counter Hezbollah's terrorist threats. We are determined to change the security reality until the threat to the residents of the north is removed.
In Gaza, we continue to focus efforts in the Khan Yunis area. We reach every place used by Hamas, that we suspect may hold information or evidence about the 134 hostages. Today we also reached Nasser Hospital for this mission. This is a mission of utmost importance.
We do not enter hospitals without reason. Rather, as we have shown repeatedly since the beginning of the war, the use of hospitals as terrorist bases is one of the fundamental aspects of Hamas's operational method.
Shifa, Rantisi, the Turkish hospital, and others – we have exposed how Hamas uses them for terrorist purposes.
In Nasser Hospital there are approximately four hundred patients and thousands of displaced civilians. It is for this very reason that Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorist, some of whom participated in the October 7th massacre, chose to hide there.

Following interrogations of terrorists arrested or surrendered in the area and testimonies of hostages who returned, we can confirm that kidnapped individuals were held in the hospital compound. In addition, we have information that bodies of hostages were also held there.
In recent hours, IDF Special forces have been operating in the hospital area against Hamas terrorist infrastructure, and scanning it to find hostages. While no findings have been made yet, we are still searching and will update all findings. So far, we have arrested dozens in the hospital area suspected in involvement in terrorism, who have been transferred for further investigation, and we have found weapons including grenades and mortar shells, within the hospital compound, placed near a point from which mortar shells were fired at our forces a month ago. At exactly that point, this was detected by our radars - firing from the Nasser Hospital at our forces - mortar fire from the hospital compound.

Among the terrorists arrested, we also found those who participated in the October 7th massacre. Here are some examples:
Maeed Adel Muhammad Abu Nazira - A Hamas ambulance driver who took part in the October 7th Massacre and admitted in his investigation that he transported a hostage from the border area into Gaza.
Ismail Ahmed Ali Oda - who confessed to participating in the October 7th massacre.
Amro Khaled Shahada Abu Rida - an operative of the PLFP, Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
The use of hospitals for terrorist activities, firing mortar shells from civilian areas, and for holding hostages are against the international law.
We are sharing the intelligence findings we have with our international partners, some will be sent to the Munich Security Conference, and further findings discovered in the area will be exposed later.
We urge displaced civilians to evacuate from the hospital compound. We have opened a humanitarian corridor in recent days, through which the area can be safely evacuated. We also assist in evacuating patients who want to leave with ambulances, or between buildings in the hospital in an organized manner.
In every hospital where we have operated, we have done so precisely and in accordance to international law and will continue to do so. We have no intention of disrupting the hospital’s function. Rather, we provide aid and needed equipment. The only ones with an interest in turning hospitals into battlegrounds are Hamas terrorists.

We have patience. We will get to every terrorist – from the lowest to the highest rank, just as we saw through and eliminated the terrorist Ahmed Ghoul, who participated in the massacre in southern communities and was one of the captors of Sergeant Noa Merziano, z”l.