Halevi says IDF launches special op ‘every week’ to try and save hostages: ‘This time we were successful’

IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi says the military did not know for certain that the daring rescue operation in southern Gaza’s Rafah to save two hostages early Monday morning would be successful.

“Every week we carry out special operations, while risking [troops’] lives in complex conditions with great uncertainty, to try and return hostages home. This time we were successful. There were more operations that did not succeed or failed. We will not stop trying, and we will do it with great responsibility,” he says.

Halevi says the rescue operation couldn’t have been carried out without the army’s ground offensive against Hamas.

“If we do not continue to attack Hamas with determination, it will be very difficult to end the war and return the hostages,” he says.

“We are very determined to bring home the 134 hostages. We continue to act wherever there is terror, and we have no intention of stopping. We have more work to complete in areas we have not been to, and also in those we have already visited,” Halevi says.

“We have plans, and we will choose the right time to carry them out, and of course also the right way,” he says, apparently referring to Israel’s expected ground offensive in Rafah.

A screenshot from footage from February 12, 2024, from an APC showing Shayetet 13 commandos asking Fernando Marman (left) and Louis Har (right) about their wellbeing, shortly after they were rescued after being held by Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip since October 7. (Israel Defense Forces)