
Colonel Richard Kemp, the former commander of the British military forces in Afghanistan, spoke to Israel National News - Arutz Sheva about the daring rescue operation in Nuseirat yesterday (Saturday) in which four hostages were rescued alive, eight months after they were kidnapped from the Nova music festival on October 7.
"This was an extremely significant event in this war," Col. Kemp told us. "The IDF has been fighting very hard, very effectively, and with immense success in Gaza. They have destroyed most of the Hamas terror army and are on the path of its final destruction as a fighting force that can threaten Israel. But all Israelis’ hearts are firmly with the hostages and this dramatic rescue operation of four of them is a much-needed shot in the arm for people who have endured so much for so long in what is becoming Israel’s longest-ever war."
He noted that such successful hostage rescues are rare during warfare. "Successful hostage rescue in a hostile environment is probably the most difficult of military operations. I have been involved in the rescue of British hostages in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is rare for them to succeed. There are two prerequisites that are both extremely hard to achieve. First, you must have pinpoint intelligence to tell you exactly where the hostages are being held and in what conditions, including who and how many are guarding them. Second, you must be able to achieve surprise, in other words, to launch the operation without prior detection. Bearing in mind it is likely that hostages will have a gun to their heads and any warning that a rescue is coming will likely see them killed immediately. Terrorists will also often be expecting a rescue and will prepare to kill the rescuers eg by booby traps, snipers, etc."
"In this case, hostages were rescued from two separate locations which is incredibly impressive given the necessity to coordinate them so precisely to avoid terrorists in one location being so that one assault does not trigger reaction from terrorists in the other," he said.
"I have the utmost admiration for those soldiers, police, and intelligence officers who carried out this operation. Each one of them knew well the lethal dangers they faced, which has been tragically shown by the death of Yamam Chief Inspector Arnon Zemorah.
When asked about the question a BBC presenter asked about the possibility of the IDF issuing a warning prior to launching the rescue operation in order to reduce Gazan casualties, Col. Kemp responded that "that sort of question can be dismissed as a sign of complete ignorance of the reality of war. To give a warning that you are about to launch a hostage rescue operation would be a guarantee of that operation’s failure."
While the rescue has been widely celebrated, there have been some who have condemned it, including United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories Francesca Albanese, who called the rescue "genocidal intent turned into action" and quoted the Hamas terrorist organization' claim that over 200 people were killed in the operation.
Responding to this criticism from the UN official, Col. Kemp said that "Albanese’s heavy anti-Israel bias is well known. She doesn’t know how many civilians or terrorists were killed during this operation and as usual is relying on figures provided by the terrorists themselves. Rather than condemning Israel, she should condemn Hamas. It is Hamas that savagely kidnapped the hostages on 7th October. It is Hamas that has been holding those hostages within the civilian population, deliberately risking civilian lives knowing that efforts would be made to rescue the hostages. It is Hamas that attacked the rescuers from behind human shields. Every death during this operation is due entirely to Hamas who also have total responsibility for all of the bloodshed since this conflict began."
He warned that Hamas would respond to this defeat by attempting to make it even harder to find and rescue the hostages who remain in Gaza. "We must hope that the IDF and Shin Bet is able to gain further intelligence to enable them to rescue more of the hostages. They are working flat out to achieve that and have been since the war began. We can be encouraged by Operation Arnon that Israel has such impressive capability and may be able to repeat it."
"Nevertheless, we should not be too optimistic because, as I have explained, achieving success in hostage rescue is incredibly difficult. After this success, there is no doubt that Hamas will be even more alert to future rescue attempts and will already have taken steps to make further operations even harder," Col. Kemp concluded.