Netanyahu Prepared for "Prolonged" Operation in Gaza
An upsurge in violence in Gaza as well as southern Israel continued Monday, despite the United Nations' plea for an immediate ceasefire.
Post a mortar attack that killed four soldiers in the Eshkol region of Israel and a foiled terrorist attempt to invade Kibbutz Nahal Oz via a tunnel attack, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday night that Israel needs to be prepared for an extended operation on the Gaza Strip.
"We will not end the operation in Gaza without neutralizing the terror tunnels," Netanyahu said at a press conference at the IAF headquarters in Tel Aviv, The Jerusalem Post reports.
According to NPR, in the press conference, he defined the mission just like Israeli officials have since a ground offensive was launched in Gaza: "Taking out the tunnels Hamas uses to infiltrate Israel."
"Israeli citizens cannot live with the threat from rockets and from death tunnels - death from above and from below," Netanyahu said. He further added: "Israelis would not end this operation without neutralizing the tunnels, whose sole purpose is killing our citizens."
US President Barack Obama had called Netanyahu late on Sunday, urging him to concede to an "immediate, unconditional ceasefire" in Gaza, as well as for the "disarmament of terrorist groups and the demilitarization of Gaza."
However, Netanyahu insists that deploying the Israeli Defence Forces to the Operation Protective Edge was the right choice for the government. He emphasized that Israel had already agreed to multiple ceasefires during the operation, but Hamas responded to them either by agreeing initially and then violating the deal or by simply continuing to attack Israel without claiming to have had agreed to any ceasefire, Breitbart reports.
According to BBC, the fighting continued throughout Monday night into Tuesday. Authorities have noted that more than 1,100 Palestinians, most of them civilians, have been killed in the fighting since it began July 8. Israeli officials, on the other hand, say that 53 of its soldiers and three civilians - two Israelis and a Thai worker, have been killed in the attacks launched by Hamas.
