The head of the Israel Defense Forces’ Southern Command on Thursday indicated he anticipated fighting would again break out in the Gaza Strip, saying that the conflict last month was only the “first stage” of a wider campaign.
“The operation ended, or at least its first stage did. The next stage will happen if we see that the security situation has changed,” Maj. Gen. Eliezer Toledano said, speaking during an on-stage interview at a conference held by Israel’s Channel 13.
Last month, Israel and Hamas fought an 11-day battle, beginning when the terror group fired a barrage of rockets at Jerusalem. During the fighting, the IDF launched some 1,500 strikes on Hamas targets in the Strip, and the terror group fired over 4,300 rockets and mortar shells at Israel.
Toledano said the IDF tried to “make the most” of the conflict, striking as many targets as possible so that when the fighting ended, the IDF would be on better footing tactically against Hamas.
“We don’t have operations like this every week or every month because we understand the burden that this puts on civilians, especially on the home front. And therefore when we launched this operation, we had to make the most of it,” he said.
However, the Southern Command chief said the military was ready for another round of fighting if need be.
“We are totally prepared to continue from the 11th day, with the 12th day, with the 13th day. It’s all contingent upon the security situation,” he said.
“If we succeeded with this first stage, that’s great. If we didn’t, we’ll have to continue,” Toledano said.
Asked if this round of fighting made it more likely that Israel would secure the release of two Israeli civilians and the remains of two IDF soldiers being held by Hamas in Gaza, Toledano said the conflict “improved the possibility,” but would not comment further.
Following the campaign, the Hamas terror group boasted of its own victories during the conflict and threatened further attacks against Israel, also holding a parade showcasing the weapons used in the fighting.
Though top Israeli officials hailed the campaign as a resounding success for the IDF, Toledano was far warier of such boasts.
“I try to not speak in ‘exclamation points’ at this time, two weeks after the ceasefire. On the one hand, I want to report what we did. On the other hand, I don’t want to be caught making hasty comments,” he said.
“But I will say this, they came prepared for Operation Protective Edge 2,” he said, referring to the IDF’s name for the 2014 Gaza war. “We came prepared for a new kind of operation, killing top commanders 20, 30, 40 meters underground.”
Toledano, whose Southern Command played a key role in the fighting, acknowledged that while the military had a number of achievements in the operation — notably in preventing Hamas’s non-rocket-based attacks — it failed to prevent Hamas from launching rockets at Israeli civilians, which effectively shut down large portions of the country for days on end.
“These wars are complicated in terms of the rockets,” Toledano said.
