A day after the return of the body of Rani Gvili, who was killed in the Gaza Strip, Prime Minister Netanyahu and the Coordinator for Prisoners and Missing Persons, Gal Hirsch, issued a statement to the media.
Netanyahu addressed the next phase of the operation in Gaza, saying: "The complete victory depends on three things-returning all our hostages, dismantling Hamas and its weapons, and demilitarizing the Gaza Strip. Yesterday, we completed the first task."
Regarding the future of the Gaza Strip, the Prime Minister made it clear: "We will not allow Turkey to enter Gaza. We will not establish a Palestinian state in Gaza. Israel will maintain security control over the entire area of Gaza."
On the situation in Iran, Netanyahu said: "The Iranian axis is trying to recover, but we will not allow it to do so. If Iran makes a grave mistake and attacks Israel, we will respond with a force that Iran has never seen before."
Hirsch admitted: "In Israel, they don't know everything you did. He helped bring people from Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, and Venezuela."
Hirsch said: "87 of the kidnapped were killed. I remember them one by one, names and faces, love their families, and am tormented and pained by the terrible suffering and loss."
He choked on tears and said: "This was the hardest task of my life. It's not a holiday, but it's a painful and also a happy day."
Netanyahu was later asked if the elections would be held on time, given the crisis surrounding the conscription law. "That is my hope and aspiration. We need stability, and the last thing Israel needs is elections."
Regarding preparations for escalation with Iran, he said: "President Trump will decide what he decides, and the State of Israel will decide what it decides. We are prepared for any scenario, but I said the main thing here. If Iran makes the mistake and attacks us, it will receive a response it cannot even imagine."
Netanyahu revealed that "at a certain point in the war we didn't have enough ammunition, and soldiers fell. Some of this loss of ammunition also came as a result of the embargo - this changed beyond recognition with the entry of President Trump."
He added: "But we have reached security maturity - we must have an independent arms industry. And I intend within a decade to completely free ourselves from the financial component of American security assistance, which currently stands at $4 billion. I want us to move relations with the US from aid relations to cooperation relations - joint investments, joint development and production."