Israeli Chief of Staff Herzi Halivi stated during an assessment of the situation in the Khan Younis area of the Gaza Strip that Israeli forces "will not leave Hamas until they return all the hostages and dismantle the last brigades of the movement." A statement issued by the Israeli Army spokesperson noted that Halivi remarked they "want to return all the abductees alive."
He added, "This requires applying pressure, killing Hamas leaders, killing Hamas activists, and an agreement to release the hostages, which is something we are exerting pressure to achieve under good conditions; this is a top mission."
Halivi continued, "This (the liberation of hostages) is one of the declared objectives of the war, and we do not need anyone to define that... this is a fundamental ethical issue." He went on to say, "Thirty hours to extract bodies from underground, from a hidden place behind a tunnel, behind fortifications, these are very complicated matters and you are doing this in a way that elicits a lot of appreciation... We were next to these bodies in the past and did not know how to reach them, and now we know how... We retrieved 5 bodies, and without your efforts, we might not have been able to reach them."
