Israel at war, the 68th day. During his statement to the media this evening (Wednesday), IDF spokesman Brigadier General Daniel Hagari referred to the battle in Shejaiya and said that "today it is not 'my Golani', today it is the Golani of all of us, of an entire nation."
Among his words, Hagari said that "Golani continue to fight with determination even now. Thanks to their determination and that of the other fighters in the IDF, we will achieve the goals of the war." He also said that the Air Force assisted the forces and there were dozens of attacks in the field.
Hagari paid tribute to the fighters: "The fall of the senior commanders in the Golani Brigade is a painful testimony to the fighting spirit of our commanders, always at the front of the battle, always the first to attack, always the first when it is necessary to rescue our fighters."
The spokesman explained that "we are at a stage where a lot of forces are operating in the Strip in contact with the enemy, the deeper we go the more encounters there are and unfortunately more casualties. The encounters result in many Hamas terrorists being killed and many terrorists surrendering."
Hagari emphasized and said, "It is important to clarify in view of the discourse in the public that there is no change in the fire policy. Each brigade, each fighter, before the entry of any force into the area, always has a strong shell of fire from the air." He also answered the question why the building was not attacked from the air: "We fire before any troops enter ground operations, if we had known there were terrorists there we would have attacked from the air. As soon as they were encountered we could not attack from the air and a rescue force came to the scene.
"In the north, IDF forces attacked many Hezbollah units in Lebanon. Since the beginning of the war, we have attacked over a hundred and ten squads of terrorists, our preparedness in the north is high and will continue to be high."