Netanyahu: ‘No choice but to go to war with Hamas’

Netanyahu said war against Hamas in Gaza appeared to be inevitable.

By World Israel News Staff

“There will be no choice but to enter a campaign, to war against Gaza,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in an interview with Israel’s Kan public radio on Thursday.

“Israeli citizens know perfectly well that I act responsibly and with discretion. I’ll will open the campaign at the most appropriate moment, I will determine it,” the prime minister said.

Netanyahu said, referring to his detractors, “Stop engaging in harsh criticism… I’m not going to act according to your tweets and your needling.”

“When you are in charge you have to decide how you’re going to conduct the war… I won’t start it a second before conditions are optimal. I won’t go one minute before we’re prepared. And I won’t start it in one minute. We’re preparing for a different kind of war, and this is my responsibility,” Netanyahu said.

During the week, terrorists from Gaza have fired a number of rocket salvos at the Jewish State.

On Tuesday, a rocket attack forced Netanyahu to evacuate a campaign event in Ashdod in the middle of his speech.

The episode, captured on video and posted to social media, became ammunition for his political opponents, who have repeatedly criticized the prime minister for Israel’s failure to confront the ongoing missile threat from Gaza.

Netanyahu has been challenged by opponents and allies over his policy vis-a-vis Hamas. Former Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman cited Netanyahu’s approach to Gaza as the main reason for his quitting the government in November, 2018.

Speaking of an unofficial ceasefire reached between Hamas and Israel, Liberman said at the time of his resignation, that Israel was “buying short-term quiet, with the price being severe long-term damage to national security.”

Since the end of March, 2018, when the Hamas terror group orchestrated its ‘March of Return,’ in which thousands rioted at the Gaza-Israel border, Israel has endured repeated rocket attacks.

The worst case was in early May when Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad fired nearly 700 rockets at Israel over several days. Four Israelis were killed in that attack.