Megidish was among over 200 hostages held by Hamas and was \u201cactively rescued\u201d with \u201cboots on the ground\u201d in a joint operation between the IDF and the Israeli Security Agency (ISA) which is also known as Shin Bet, Conricus said. <\/p>\n
With Israel declaring a \u201cnew phase of war\u201d as it started ground operations last Friday, Conricus said that \u201cbased on intelligence\u201d the Israeli special forces went into northern Gaza knowing her whereabouts and rescued her. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt indeed was a special operation that was targeted in specifically getting her out,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey were in there for a job,\u201d Conricus said, adding that he is happy with the outcome as Megidish is \u201cwell mentally and physically,\u201d and has reunited with her family. <\/p>\n
Megidish has also shared information about her captivity with Israeli intelligence officers that \u201ccan be used for the future,\u201d Conricus added. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe are definitely committed to get all of our 238 hostages currently held by Hamas in Gaza, all of them, to get them home,\u201d he said, but stopped short on whether there are other similar operations planned based on intelligence about the remaining hostages\u2019 whereabouts. <\/p>\n
The hostage rescue comes amid growing international pressure on the Israeli government to secure the release of others held captive in Gaza for more than three weeks since Hamas\u2019 rampage in Israel that killed more than 1,400 people, mostly civilians. <\/p>\n
According to an estimate released by the\u00a0Israeli Government Press Office last week, 135\u00a0hostages holding\u00a0foreign\u00a0passports from 25 countries are among those held in Gaza, including civilian men, women, children and the elderly as well as soldiers. <\/p>\n
Hamas, the militant group the runs Gaza, has so far released just four hostages \u2013 two frail Israeli elderly women and an American mother and daughter \u2013 but negotiations to free a large number of captives are being\u00a0complicated by\u00a0Israel\u2019s expansion of its\u00a0ground\u00a0operations into the besieged territory. <\/p>\n
In response to those comments, Conricus said he \u201cwould argue that the reality on the ground dictates differently\u201d based on the IDF\u2019s rescue of Megidish. <\/p>\n
Israel has said\u00a0its intensifying ground offensive puts additional pressure on Hamas, and therefore may ultimately be helpful in the ongoing efforts to free hostages. <\/p>\n
Conricus also alleged that Hamas is indulging in psychological warfare by using hostages as leverage. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe\u00a0way that Hamas has been behaving\u00a0so far is that they\u2019re trying to\u00a0leverage their hostages \u2026 in order to alleviate their\u00a0combat situation and the\u00a0tactical situation on the\u00a0ground,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
He added that the Israeli military is making \u201cconsiderable efforts, now in the ground warfare, to distinguish between combatants and non-combatant,\u201d adding they are \u201cmoving slowly and deliberately.\u201d <\/p>\n\n
Megidish was among over 200 hostages held by Hamas and was \u201cactively rescued\u201d with \u201cboots on the ground\u201d in a joint operation between the IDF and the Israeli Security Agency (ISA) which is also known as Shin Bet, Conricus said. With Israel declaring a \u201cnew phase of war\u201d as it started ground operations last Friday, <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":10921,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-10920","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10920","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10920"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10920\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}