Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Wednesday said during a visit to the Shayetet 13 Israeli Navy seals base in the northwestern city of Atalit that the IDF needs to double the number of killed Hamas terrorists from 9,000 to 18,000 or more.
Gallant said, "There is only one legal response for actions like those perpetrated on the seventh of October – elimination of the organization. Hamas has more than 9,000 dead, we need to double that number, and even that will not be enough."
Given that the rate at which the IDF is killing or arresting Hamas terrorists has dropped significantly in the last month, it was unclear how Gallant thought Israel would accomplish this.
The defense minister also responded to implicit calls by his fellow war cabinet ministers Benny Gantz and Gadi Eisenkot, as well as calls by Opposition Leader Yair Lapid and many media commentators to put returning Hamas’s Israeli hostages ahead of completely defeating Hamas.
'I hear the rumors - we will continue fighting until victory'
He stated, "I hear the rumors [about a hostage exchange deal with Hamas without full victory] – [but] we will continue fighting until victory. Not near, not almost, not basically - but until we smite the Hamas organization, take away all of its significant military capabilities, and remove it from power in Gaza.”
As long as there are hostages in Gaza, he said, “we have no right to stop the fighting,” adding that “the only way to bring the hostages home is military pressure.
Gallant continued, "What is being done in the northern area of Gaza is a dismantling all of the capabilities, the frameworks of their battalions, and as a result, IDF brigades can maneuver from place to place, including Beit Lahia, Beit Hanoun, and Jabalia, and the same is true for the eastern part central Gaza, and we will get there in Khan Yunis as well.”
He also promised Hamas it would see unspecified “surprises” regarding the hostages.
Halevi: 'IDF committed to bringing back security to the North'
Also on Wednesday, IDF Chief-of-Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi said, “I do not know when the war in the North will be, but I can tell you that the probability of it happening in the coming months is much greater than it was in the past.”
Further he said that he believed that the IDF would start such a war in a much stronger position militarily. In recent days, the IDF revealed that it has destroyed 750 Hezbollah targets in the last three months, moving back many of the terror group’s forces from the border with Israel.
Halevi said the IDF is committed to returning a real sense of security to the northern border so residents from evacuated villages will come back having been evacuated in October.
On one hand, Halevi’s statement seemed tailored to work in parallel with an unusually large IDF series of dozens of attacks on Hezbollah all in Wadi Saluki Village on Tuesday.
On the other hand, Halevi and other top Israeli officials have been making strident threats against Hezbollah for months without there being any clear end game or timing of when the IDF would launch a much larger attack if Jerusalem’s patience for a diplomatic solution runs out.
Meanwhile on Wednesday, the IDF killed the Hezbollah terrorists responsible for rocket fire toward Rosh Hanikra earlier in the day, the Israeli military said.
Earlier on Wednesday, several launches were detected from Lebanon to northern Israel. One of the Hezbollah launch teams that fired rockets at Rosh HaNikra was identified immediately after the launch by an IDF aircraft that followed and attacked it.
Later, Air Force fighter jets attacked a number of active rocket launch teams and terrorist infrastructure in southern Lebanon.
This is in addition to IDF artillery strikes in other areas in southern Lebanon.
For its part, Hezbollah also fired a number of anti-tank missiles on Israel.
In Gaza, a joint operation conducted by the IDF and the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency), Bilal Nofal, Hamas;s chief of counterintelligence, which put him in charge of interrogating Palestinians suspected of espionage on behalf of Israel, was eliminated by an IDF air strike.
Nofal played a crucial role in advancing Hamas's research and development processes, and his elimination is expected to significantly degrade the organization's capacity to adjust and adapt new lessons from the war in real time.
The operation comes in the wake of a rocket attack on the city of Netivot on Tuesday when 50 rockets were fired at the southern Israeli city. Following that attack, IDF troops successfully located the launch compound within the Gaza Strip, from which the rockets were fired.
The troops discovered three launchers, each equipped with ten barrels, some of which were loaded with rockets. The compound and the launchers were promptly destroyed by the IDF, thwarting potential future attacks.
In order to destroy the launchers and the compound, the IDF killed a number of terrorists and captured seven others who had been involved in Tuesday’s rocket attacks.
In Khan Yunis, IDF forces identified three terrorists attempting to escape to a building after firing mortar shells at the troops. A helicopter was deployed to strike and eliminate the three terrorists.
Meanwhile, in the outskirts of Sheikh Ijlin in central Gaza, IDF troops identified and targeted two terrorists with the assistance of an IAF aircraft. The operation also led to the discovery of large quantities of weapons in the area.
Also, the IDF announced the death of St.-Sgt. Oriya Ayimalk Goshen and St.-Sgt.-Maj. (res.) Anwar Serhan on Wednesday.
Oriya Ayinalk Goshen, 21, was a Sayeret Givati soldier from Jerusalem. He fell in combat in the southern Gaza Strip.
Anwar Serhan was 26 years old from Hurfeish and a soldier in the 910th Battalion. He was killed in a car crash during operations in Gush Etzion, the IDF said.
Earlier on Wednesday, it was announced that two IDF soldiers were killed in action in the northern Gaza Strip.
Maj. (res) Zachariah Pesach Haber, 32 years old, from Jerusalem, an armored fighter, and Sergeant Maj. (res) Yair Katz, 34 years old, from Holon, a fighter, both in the 87th Battalion, 14th Strike Brigade, fell in a battle in the northern Gaza Strip.
In addition, a reserve fighter in the 52nd Battalion, Iron Footprint Formation (401), was seriously injured in a battle in the northern Gaza Strip, and a reserve combat medic in the 6261st Brigade, Brigade 261, was seriously injured near the Gaza border.
An IDF reservist was wounded during an overnight operation in Tulkarm when terrorists threw explosives and began shooting at IDF forces, according to an IDF statement.
The reservist was seriously wounded after being hit by gunfire. The soldier was taken to hospital for medical treatment, and his family has been notified.