The Israeli army Southern Division Command convened on Wednesday for a debriefing session regarding the three day military offensive conducted over the weekend, targeting the Gaza Strip.
Army officials told reporters that the outcome of the operation, which had been named ‘Hot Winter’, was ‘satisfactory’.
Military leaders said that the Givati and the Barak armored brigades managed to learned from the mistakes of the war with Lebanon in the summer of 2006. they praised their ‘very high combat strategies’ that allowed them to ‘win a victory in this operation’.
The Givati and Barak brigades sustained very high losses at the hands of Hezbollah fighters in the Lebanon campaign.
Ground operation ‘Hot Winter’ that targeted the northern part of the Gaza Strip started last Saturday at dawn and finished on Monday morning. During this attack, 86 Palestinians were killed, among them children, in addition to nearly 300 injured.
B’TSELEM – The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, issued a report on Tuesday stating that 54 of those killed in the three day offensive were civilians, among them 25 children.
Israeli military sources told Israeli media that the army now believes the Hamas movement is not as organized as the army had thought before the operation.
Army officials maintained that Hamas did not ‘win’, noting that the Israeli army had killed 125 Palestinians in less than a week, all of which the army claim to be resistance fighters.
