IDF will continue to surprise Hamas, top IDF spokesperson says

The Israel Defense Forces will maintain ambiguity as its soldiers operate throughout the Gaza Strip to return the 59 hostages held by Hamas and collapse the terror organization’s abilities, IDF Spokesperson Brig. Gen. Ephraim “Effie” Defrin said during a visit to the enclave on Monday.

“From the beginning of the operation, we have maintained ambiguity. This is not just a slogan—ambiguity is part of the method, part of the operational concept. We don’t want to share with Hamas what we are doing,” the spokesman said during a tour of the Morag Corridor, which separates Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah from the rest of the Strip.

“Now that we’ve finished cutting things up here, we’ll open up more and more and continue to surprise them,” Defrin told reporters on the tour.

“We are operating in northern and southern Gaza, where we are now,” Defrin said in remarks shared by the military. “We are striking Hamas infrastructure. There are many achievements, both underground and above ground, and we are targeting Hamas’s chain of command—we will continue to strike consistently and persistently.

Defrin emphasized that returning the remaining hostages was not only the reason Jerusalem returned to fighting, but that the mission remains the top priority for the entire IDF, “From the head of the command, through the division commanders, down to the last soldier.

“We will pursue Hamas wherever it is—whether in the northern Gaza Strip, the southern Gaza Strip, or outside the Gaza Strip—everywhere. We will not rest until we bring our hostages home, every last one of them, both the living and the dead,” vowed the top spokesperson.

The Israeli Air Force struck more than 200 targets across Gaza over the past 72 hours, including “terrorist squads, rocket and sniper positions, weapons depots and buildings used for terror activity,” the IDF has said.

Soldiers from the IDF’s Gaza Division operating in Rafah destroyed infrastructure and discovered a weapons cache containing grenades, ammunition and other military equipment used by terror groups.

In northern Gaza, forces from the IDF’s 252nd Division identified a number of terrorists in a building housing underground infrastructure, and carried out an aircraft strike against the site, according to the IDF.

The IDF resumed military activity in the Strip on March 18 after Hamas rejected a proposal to extend the ceasefire through the Passover and Ramadan periods, during which time the Palestinian terrorist group would release 11 living hostages and half of the bodies it still holds.

The renewed Israeli military campaign has been officially named “Operation Strength and Sword.”

Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, launched the deadliest single-day attack on Jews since the Holocaust, murdering some 1,200 people and kidnapping 251 more into the Gaza Strip. Of the latter, 147 have been returned to Israel alive in two separate rounds of ceasefire agreements, which included the release of thousands of Palestinian terrorists from Israeli prisons.

Jerusalem believes that out of the 59 remaining captives held in the coastal enclave, 24 are still alive, including one Thai and one Nepali.