Israel “knows how to get anywhere in the Middle East” IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi warned on Monday as he visited a squadron of Israeli Air Force F-35 fighter jets, machine gun in hand.

“We are already a month into the war, we are hitting Hamas very, very hard, we are hitting the leadership of Hamas, we are hitting the commanders, we are hitting the terrorists, we are destroying the infrastructure of Hamas in Gaza and we are also constantly ready for (businesses in) other regions,” Halevi told military personnel at Nevatim Air Base. “This n [αεροπορική] base knows how to get anywhere in the Middle East,” he said.

Halevi told the soldiers that he recently saw an F-35 fighter jet providing air support to troops at a distance of about 200 meters in the Gaza Strip.

“I had never done anything like this. With very heavy ammunition, a very good connection between what the (ground) force needs and what the airplane knows how to give,” he noted. “This connection of air and earth together, we always knew it was strong, we see now that it is much stronger than we knew.”

For his part, Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari said the Shifa hospital in the Gaza Strip is being used as a hideout for terrorists, and when asked at a press conference if the IDF would attack the hospital, he said the army would “in any place where there are terrorists, in any infrastructure.”

“If the Middle East ‘falls’ into the ‘axis of terror’, Europe will be next”, warned in the meantime on Monday o Benjamin Netanyahu speaking to 80 foreign ambassadors in Jerusalem. “And no one will be safe” he stated emphatically.

The Israeli prime minister made it clear that Israel’s war against Hamas “is not a local battle.” “Our victory is your victory” he argued.