Gallant: The Pressure on Hamas Promotes the Release of the Abductees

Defense Minister Yoav Gallant visited today (Wednesday) the reserve unit of the operational driving school, and spoke with fighters who have been operating in the Gaza Strip in recent days. In the visit, in which the unit's unique operational capabilities were presented, manifested in the movement of troops along various terrain routes, the chief infantry officer and paratroopers commander, Lt. Col. Eran Oliel and the commander of the 99th division, Lt. Col. Barak Hiram, also participated.

"We have two goals in this fight," Gallant said. "The first thing, we are dismantling Hamas, no less and no more, eliminating the entire chain of command, all the bunkers, all the surface compounds, also the underground compounds, harming the commanders and killing as many terrorists as possible."

"The second thing, we execute any operation that can bring about the rescue of our abductees. When I say the rescue, it can be a ground operation and it can come from another place," he added. "Only the effort in fighting from the air and of course from the ground, together with the pressure created on them, is what pushes the issue of the captives and the missing forward."

"This is why I pressed all the way to maneuver - first of all, because it achieves the goals of the war. And the second thing, Hamas only understands force, if you don't act with force they don't understand. When you start acting with force, suddenly you have something to give them, and what you can give them is a short period of quiet, and when you give them a short period of quiet, they are willing to pay for it. That's the whole logic of this thing. I mean, you achieve both goals, at the same time."

Gallant added and told the reservists that "I look at the operation of the forces, it works on a very high level. And I assume that we will reach the achievement of these two goals. The road is not going to be short. What we did now in a part of Gaza City, take it and copy it, 3, 4, 5 times throughout the Gaza Strip. At the end of the day, we cannot live with this threat next to us."

In conclusion, the minister pledged that "in the Gaza Strip, there will be no threat. There will be no military threat to the State of Israel, Hamas will cease to function as a military-governmental body with capabilities, and we will have the full ability to act whenever we want if a threat is created."