IDF Chief Halevi praises 'very, very successful' Shifa Hospital op, says goals achieved but not done

IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Herzi Halevi visited troops at Shifa Hospital in the Gaza Strip on Friday and held a situational assessment with officers of the Southern Command, where he praised the achievements of the ongoing operation, where forces continue to apprehend and eliminate terrorists in and around the Shifa Hospital complex.

“After two weeks, we carried out a successful operation…To carry out something of this scale during a war is very complex,” Halevi told the commanders.

"This is a very impressive achievement of a military tactic," he told the Commanding Officer of the Southern Command Maj.-Gen. Yaron Finkelman; Commanding Officer of the 162nd Division Brig.-Gen. Itzik Cohen; Commanding Officer of Shayetet 13, Navy Capt. A., and others in attendance.

Halevi told them that what the IDF has accomplished at Shifa “demonstrates a very, very high level of combat."

"No one can take back the large number of terrorists we apprehended, the large number of terrorists we eliminated, so many senior officials,” he said.

"There is a very, very important message here: A hospital is not a safe hiding place [for terrorists]," he added and said the terrorists can no longer say of the IDF: 'Here, they won’t touch us.'

Halevi underscored that the Israeli troops are "doing everything to prevent harm to the patients, to the medical teams," confirming: “This operation does not have a single medical staff member that was harmed, there are no patients harmed and there are many, many terrorists who were eliminated.”

Halevi said that while the Shifa operation has already “achieved its goal,” it is not over and will continue “thoroughly until it is announced that we are done."