Ilan Segev, a former Shin Bet official, spoke on Tuesday about the release of Eden Alexander and Israel’s goal of returning the 58 remaining hostages.
“Edan has returned home, and that’s important, but the road to returning all 58 hostages who remain in Gaza is still long,” he said in an interview with Kan Moreshet.
Segev emphasized that while every release of a hostage is significant, it’s important to understand the complexity of the situation in Gaza. “To locate the hostages, we need to understand the tunnel infrastructure in Gaza. This is not a matter of days, but of years. There is an entire ‘city’ underground in these tunnels, which makes any military action very difficult.”
He explained that the tunnels were built in a highly sophisticated manner, underneath civilian infrastructure and covered with greenhouses and rooftops, which shrouds the underground military activity and makes it undetectable to normal military reconnaissance means.
Segev added that conquering territories in Gaza will not advance the return of the hostages. “The occupation of the Strip and the entry of tanks is not the solution. This will not lead to the return of all the hostages. We have been in this situation for over a year and have not succeeded in achieving our goals.”
(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)
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9 Responses
Who allowed this terrorist infustructer to be built?
ISA? Left? The government to appease terrorists and EU and US?
Why the enablers are still getting pensions and benefits?
ה’ איש מלחמה – you can count on his assistance but NOT when you arrest Bnei Torah!
The underground! There is all the cement that was given to the Palestinians to build homes an roads! Why is the world quiet? Abused aid used to abuse people!
David, please ווינטש אונז אן בעסערס! We can and must count on Hashem’s assistance. He’s the only one who can help us. There are 7,000,000 Yidden in Eretz Yisroel including over 2 million שומרי תורה ומצוות. While we’re at it asking to be saved from our enemies who want to destroy us let’s also ask that true Bnei Torah can continue learning uninterrupted bringing zechuyos to Klal Yisroel.
Really?
Israel has detained over a thousand Hamas operatives from all ranks, why couldn’t they get out from these terror heads the exact location of the hidden tunnels?
It doesn’t go easy, don’t let them sleep until they provide the prize info!
Get your act together already!
He doesn’t say that HAMAS cannot be defeated. He’s focused on the complexity of the underground world they’ve built (with the aid of the liberal do-gooders and Jew haters around the world). Many of them booby-trapped, with the risk of killing hostages a factor, hampers the cleanup effort, along with tunnel discovery. Exporting civilians (still terror supporters, and circumstantial activists), can reduce the collateral stuff, but we still need our drones, mobile camera’s and sensors to traverse these subterranean hideaways to verify no hostages. We’ve tried flooding, what about smoke-outs to find ventilation ports? No electric helps, but do generators provide a detectable signature? Keep up the efforts, to bring our folks home, and find alternative accommodations for the others. Hatzlocha rabbah!
Why should we give a hoot about pronouncements from Shin Bet officials, past or present? These people were responsible for the greatest intelligence failure since the Yom Kippur war. Exactly 50 years before. And every single person in Israel has an opinion to offer on every subject under the sun, so why bother airing them. Everyone is right and everyone is wrong. Only HKBH runs this country.
i’m sure this person sincerely believes what he is saying, but that doesn’t mean that he’s right. the example of gilad shalit, who was held hostage in gaza, without “the entry of tanks” comes to mind – a single soldier was “successfully” traded for more than 1,000 convicted terrorists, including yahya sinwar. not only did that not eliminate a single tunnel or a single terrorist, it led straight to oct 7.
This fool is part of the problem. The shin bet knew, the idf knew and the government knew that hamas was building for years, and yet they did NOTHING. He isn’t adding to the solution, merely throwing in a wrench because the shin bet and entire security apparatus failed the country. Instead of giving interviews, he should be asking mechila.