Israel's chief of staff: 'We will fight until Hamas is annihilated'

Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Herzi Halevi told Israeli troops on Sunday that Israel will return to its fight to annihilate the Hamas terrorist organization once the hostage deal is completed.

“The IDF and its soldiers fight fiercely and protect the lives of our people and uphold the values ​​of the IDF,” Halevi told Israeli soldiers stationed in the northern part of the Gaza Strip. 

“We managed to create conditions for the political outline for the first release of children and mothers,” Halevi said, referring to the hostage deal in which Israeli women and children are being released each day in exchange for Palestinian terrorists jailed in Israeli prisons.

“With the completion of the swap deal, we will return to fight with full determination, for the continued release of the abductees until Hamas is annihilated.”

Halevi praised the troops for their hard work and commitment to protecting and defending Israel during the war against Hamas.

“I met many of you at the end of long hours of fighting both above and underground, facing complex challenges,” Halevi said.

“In every encounter, I saw reflected in your eyes the magnitude of the moment, the fighting spirit and determination to achieve all the objectives of the war. I heard you tell me: 'We want to fight until we return the hostages.' And so we are doing just that!”

Last Wednesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant held a press conference, where the prime minister said he told Mossad foreign intelligence to focus on finding and acting against the leaders of Hamas, who primarily usually divide their time between Qatar and Turkey.

Netanyahu said the agreement with Hamas to pause the fighting in Gaza does not put any limitations on Israel’s actions against the leaders of Hamas.

The prime minister added that there is no clause in the ceasefire agreement that grants immunity to Hamas leaders.

Gallant also said last week that Hamas leaders, especially top leaders Ismail Haniyeh and Khaled Mashal, were all “dead men." 

“They are living on borrowed time, all over the globe; they are all dead men,” Gallant said.

Nevertheless, according to a report by French journalist Georges Malbrunot of Le Figaro, sources reportedly said Netanyahu had made a promise to Qatar not to act against the leaders of Hamas living in the country and that Qatar had required Israel to abstain from carrying out assassinations in Qatar as a precondition for its role as mediator in the hostage release negotiations.

“Doha presented its precondition to Israel a few weeks ago, before assuming its role as a mediator in the abductee issue,” the French report stated.

Some believe Israel’s stated goal to eliminate Hamas leaders should extend to Hamas’ supporter, the Islamic Republic of Iran.

According to former Mossad chief, Yossi Cohen, all Iranians that were involved in the terrorist attack should be included in the quest to annihilate the leaders.

“I think we have to find any and every single Iranian from the Ministry of Intelligence, from the army, from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps – whose filthy hands were on the [Oct. 7] operation directly and indirectly – and pursue them,” Cohen told The Jerusalem Post earlier this month.