AFP

Tel Aviv

 

Israel will keep up its military campaign against Hamas in Gaza for as long and as forcefully as needed, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened yesterday in a statement mocked by Hamas.

Netanyahu said that all options were “on the table” to achieve that mission.

“From the beginning, we promised to return the quiet to Israel’s citizens and we will continue to act until that aim is achieved. We will take as much time as necessary, and will exert as much force as needed,” he said in a public address.

“All options are on the table to return peace to the citizens of Israel.”

He also pledged to do whatever necessary to bring home 23-year-old soldier Hadar Goldin, who Israel believes was captured by Palestinian resistance fighters during an ambush in southern Gaza early on Friday.

“Israel will continue to make every effort to bring its missing sons home,” he pledged in remarks made just after the missing soldier’s mother made an  appeal demanding that there be no troop withdrawal until her son is found.

Hamas’s armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, acknowledged its fighters had staged an ambush early Friday in which troops were killed, but denied holding the soldier, saying the attackers were missing and presumed dead.

“We have lost contact with the mujahedeen unit that was in that ambush, and we think that all the fighters in this unit were killed by Zionist shelling along with the soldier, who the enemy says is missing, assuming our combatants captured this soldier during the fighting,” it said,

“Until now, we in Qassam have no knowledge of the missing soldier, or his whereabouts or the circumstances of his disappearance.”

Netanyahu said troops would complete the mission of destroying a complex network of tunnels used by resistance fighters before deciding on its next security objectives.

“After the completion of our activity against the tunnels, the IDF (army) will prepare to continue our activities according to security needs, and only according to our security needs, until we achieve the objective of returning security to the citizens of Israel,” he said.

Hamas “will pay an insufferable price for continuing to fire”, Netanyahu said.

A spokesman for the Hamas movement mocked Netanyahu’s statements as “confused” and testimony of the “real crisis” he was facing.

“We will continue our resistance till we achieve our goals,” Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhum told AFP after the Israeli leader’s speech.

An Israeli official told AFP that no Israeli delegation would be flying to Cairo to attend talks on a ceasefire, after a Palestinian delegation had already arrived in the Egyptian capital to that end.

But Netanyahu  did not rule out a diplomatic solution to the conflict which has so far cost the lives of more than 1,700 Palestinians in Gaza.

“I want to achieve the goals of the operation, either militarily, if I can diplomatically, or by a combination of both,” Netanyahu said.

“I of course prefer a diplomatic solution, but if there’s no choice, we’ll of course use all the means at our disposal,” he said.

Earlier yesterday, the Israeli army had given an indication that it was ending operations in parts of Gaza.

The Israeli army messaged residents of part of northern Gaza that it was “safe” to return home. 

“They have been informed it is safe for civilians to return to Beit Lahiya and Al-Atatra,” a spokeswoman told AFP.

Witnesses in the north confirmed seeing troops leaving the area as others were seen leaving another flashpoint area in southern Gaza. 

It was the first time troops had been seen pulling back since the start of Israel’s devastating 26-day operation.

Emir and UN chief
review developments

 

HH the Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani yesterday received a phone call from UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. The phone conversation reviewed the latest developments in the Palestinian territories in light of the Israeli aggression on Gaza Strip, and efforts to stop it and provide protection for Palestinian civilians. Palestinians inspecting the wreckage of a building, which was hit in an Israeli strike, in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip yesterday.