Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed Operation Protective Edge this morning (Sunday), saying:
""Israel is waging an aggressive military campaign against Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip. Hamas has chosen to attack our cities with massive and indiscriminate rocket fire. I said from the beginning that we would respond forcefully to this criminal firing at our citizens, and so we are doing.".
We are striking Hamas with increasing force, we are striking commanders, operatives, missile stockpiles, headquarters. The IDF, the Shin Bet, the security forces, the firefighters, the police – everyone is doing their part and doing it to the best of their ability.
But we need to understand how our enemy works – who is hiding in mosques? Hamas. Who is putting weapons caches under hospitals? Hamas. Who is putting headquarters in residential buildings, or near kindergartens? Hamas. Hamas is using Gaza residents as human shields and is wreaking havoc on Gaza’s citizens, so the responsibility for any harm to civilians in Gaza – which we regret – lies with Hamas and its partners, and with them alone.
The leadership of Hamas and the other organizations, while using the Gazan population as a human shield, chooses to hide underground, flee abroad, and deliberately put their citizens in the line of fire. This is the whole difference between us and Hamas - we use missile defense systems to protect the residents of Israel, and they use the residents of Gaza to protect the missile caches. Nothing more illustrates the whole difference in this campaign. Israel is a democracy that is fighting a legitimate and focused battle against unrestrained terrorists, and there is no other country in the world that would act at least as well as we act to protect our citizens.
We will continue to act patiently and calmly, with determination, responsibility and firmness to achieve the goal of the operation – restoring calm for a long period while significantly harming Hamas and the other terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip. The IDF is prepared for all possibilities.
Now two more points: The first is for the citizens of Israel – you are showing maturity and responsibility and I think you are acting in a way that impresses the whole world, but I have a request: don't be complacent. I know there are people who come out and want to see the missiles, I ask you: don't do that.
I ask you to enter a protected area, we are speaking here from a protected area, we ask you to be inside a protected area, to obey the Home Front Command's instructions as needed. Someone rightly said that in this matter of civil defense, not only Iron Dome is needed, but also iron discipline.
Overall, you have demonstrated this so far, I ask you to continue to do so in the future. We do not know when the operation will end, it could take a long time and we need both your support, but also your discipline.
One last point – today in Vienna the foreign ministers of the major powers are meeting, they are going to discuss the issue of dealing with Iran's nuclear program. I would like to remind them that the one who finances Hamas and Islamic Jihad is Iran, the one who arms Hamas and Islamic Jihad is Iran, the one who trains Hamas and Islamic Jihad is Iran.
Iran is a terrorist power that finances, arms, and trains terrorist organizations that we are fighting. Iran must not be given the ability to produce fissile material for nuclear weapons. If this happens, the things we see around us and the things happening in the Middle East will be seven times worse, and perhaps much worse.
In recent years, we have made certain predictions about the Middle East – me and my friends here around the table – and unfortunately these predictions matched one another. This prediction of Iran as a nuclear brinkman state must not come true either, it must not. It must not be this way and it must not be that way.".
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