Defense Minister Yoav Gallant toured the Yiftah Zikim base today (Sunday), speaking to the soldiers during the tour, and releasing a statement to the press: “This is the war of the children of light against the children of darkness, and it will be a lethal war.”
The minister also said that “I saw, I studied, I learned the events which were here over the past few days and especially on Shabbat when the massacre took place. What I saw here is demonstrations of heroism by female soldiers, male soldiers, male and female citizens, all these people together physically protected the State of Israel and granted life to residents a little further away, in the other cities and settlements.”
"The heroism of the soldiers who charged with open hands, sometimes with grenades, with weapons they collected from terrorists, with equipment they brought with them from home being called up in a moment, these things are very impressive.”
“This is a war which will change the situation forever”
“There is a war here that is a war of the children of darkness against the children of light. We are at the edge of a culture which does not accept our existence here, barbarians, wild animals, who murdered our female and male soldiers, our children, our civilians. The fighters here together with their friends, together with the Air Force, the intelligence, and the navy, will destroy the Hamas organizations.”
"There will not be a situation where civilians, Israeli children and women, will be kidnapped and we will sit quietly. We will reach all the terror infrastructures, we will reach all the tunnels, we will reach all the Hamas activists, and until we take them out we will not complete the mission. This will be an intense war, this will be a lethal war, this will be a precise war, and it will be a war which will change the situation forever.”
“We are fighting the war of the Jewish People”
Gallant also addressed the issue of the captives and the missing, saying “I want to say a few more words from an entirely different place. I receive dozens of appeals from families of captives, missing, fallen. The People of Israel suffered a serious blow. We are all, in our hearts, with the children of the bereaved families and those seeking out their loved ones. We are making every effort in order to locate them even within this great complexity.”
“I formed a very strong team of all our intelligence organizations and all our defense organizations working day and night in order to try and locate information. This effort is happening alongside the war effort. These two things are things which we are going to maintain.”
Gallant then ended his speech with “And one more word: this morning, I met five senior Senators, lead by two of the leaders, Chuck Schumer and Mitt Romney, among the most senior Senators in the United States. They came to tell us: ‘The President, the Pentagon, the Defense Minister, and we – all members of the Senate and Congress stand with Israel, we are freeing all the roadblocks if there are any. You will get all the ammunition you need, all the equipment you need.”
“You are fighting the war of Israel, the war of the Jewish People, but also the war of global culture, western and free, and you are also fighting in the name of liberal, normal forces in the world.’”