The Israel Defense Forces is moving its ground operation to Rafah in southern Gaza on the border with Egypt, because there are many Israeli hostages being held by Hamas there, Brigadier General Gal Hirsch, part of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's inner circle, who serves as the coordinator of prisoners and missing persons for Israel's current war on Hamas in Gaza, said. “In Rafah, there are many hostages and many, many terror groups - actually Hamas is still there,” Hirsch told CNN in an interview on Saturday at the Munich Security Conference in Germany.
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Acknowledging that there are some 1.3 million Palestinian civilian staking refuge in Rafah, Hirsch said that the IDF is doing “everything we can to avoid possible damage,” but added that “Rafah must be next, because we must release the hostages.”
On Thursday, the IDF rescued two older hostages who were being held in an apartment in Rafah.
Netanyahu referenced the issue of Rafah during a nationally televised statement on Saturday night.
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Gal Hirsch is Israel's coordinator of prisoners and missing persons; Palestinian refugees in tents in Gaza
(Photos: REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa, Motti Kimchi)
"On Thursday I spoke with US President Joe Biden. I speak with world leaders every day. I tell them decisively: Israel will fight until we achieve total victory. And indeed, this includes action in Rafah, of course after we allow the civilians found in the combat zones to evacuate to safe areas. Whoever wants to prevent us from operating in Rafah is telling us in effect to lose the war. I will not allow this," he said.
"We will not surrender to any pressure. We will not surrender, because we are a people of heroes. We will not surrender because we are a people that desires life. We will not surrender because we must, must, defeat the evil. Neither will we surrender to international diktat regarding a future arrangement with the Palestinians," the prime minister added.
Hirsch echoed previous Netanyahu statements about coming to an arrangement with Hamas for an exchange of hostages for Palestinian prisoners, which negotiators worked toward much of last week in Cairo. He told CNN that demands for a hostage deal are “delusional” and need to be “close to reality.”
“We want a deal very much and we know we need to pay prices. But Hamas’s demands are disconnected from reality – delusional," he said.
Hirsch, who works in Israel’s Prime Minister’s Office, told CNN that he has concerns that the Hamas political officials negotiating the hostage deal are not in contact with Hamas officials on the ground in Gaza.
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The family of hostages Fernando Marman and Louis Har are reunited with them at Sheba Hospital after they were rescued from Gaza.
(Photo: IDF Spokesperson's Unit)
One example of this, he said, was that Hamas had agreed during a previous negotiation to pass on medications to the Israeli hostages, and so far it appears that none have received their medicines. In the same way that the medicines were not delivered, he says, it is not clear that Hamas will deliver on freeing the hostages should such an agreement come to fruition.
He revealed that during the IDF operation at Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, Israeli forces found the medicines with the names of the Israeli hostages on them, though CNN reported that they could not confirm this information since they were not permitted to see the medicines.
Hirsch told CNN that the IDF is committed to bringing the hostages home and is willing to pay a "big price" to do so, but it is not wiling to end the war against Hamas.
“We are ready to stop warfare by cease-fires, not to stop the war,” Hirsch said. “The war won’t end. Hamas will be dismantled, but we would like very much to make a deal and to bring our hostages back home. This is very, very important to us.”