Israel dealt Hamas ‘a heavy blow’ and is prepared to resume offensive if need be, Netanyahu says
Barak dismisses claims that ceasefire puts Israel at a disadvantage, says removing Hamas would keep army in Gaza for years; Gantz says IDF achieved its objectives
Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu and his defense minister, Ehud Barak, on Thursday asserted
that the government had attained the goals it set out to accomplish with
Operation Pillar of Defense, but was determined to resume attacks on
the Gaza Strip if a tentative ceasefire reached on Wednesday unraveled.
“The IDF dealt a very heavy blow to Hamas and
the other terror organizations,” Netanyahu said during a visit to the
Israel Police National Headquarters in Jerusalem. “We took out thousands
of rockets that were aimed at the south, and almost all of the rockets
that were pointed at the center of the country. We’re prepared to act if
the quiet is broken.”
The prime minister acknowledged the
frustration expressed by some Israelis who felt that the army should
have pressed forward with a ground offensive and dealt Hamas a decisive,
perhaps fatal blow.
“We’re prepared for [a more extensive
operation] as well,” Netanyahu said. “We choose — as we did in this
operation — when to act, against whom, and in what fashion. For the
moment we’ve given the ceasefire a chance; it’s the right step for
Israel, but if it isn’t upheld [by the other side], we’ll do what’s
necessary.”
Barak said that Israel may be forced to fight
Hamas again, possibly in the near future. But despite the tenuous nature
of the ceasefire with the rulers of the Gaza Strip, he said, Israel had
achieved its goals in Operation Pillar of Defense.
In an interview with Israel Radio — his first
since Israel and Hamas agreed to ceasefire terms Wednesday, after eight
days of fighting — Barak said that the military option of conquering the
Gaza Strip was on the table throughout the operation. But removing
Hamas from power, he said, would create a situation where “we’ll be
forced to stay [in Gaza] for years.”
“You can topple the Hamas regime, but the problem is, you don’t know how to get out” of ruling Gaza, he said.
Insisting that the IDF came out on top in
the latest round of hostilities — despite Hamas claims to the contrary —
Barak said Hamas was dealt a serious blow.
“While our chief of staff will be addressing
the press soon, their chief of staff is in the ground,” he said. Hamas’s
military commander, Ahmed Jabari, was killed by an Israeli Air Force
strike last Wednesday, the first day of the Gaza operation.
Hamas, he continued, “succeeded in hitting
Israeli targets with only a single ton of explosives, while targets in
Gaza were hit with a thousand tons… We have a powerful,
effective military, and we consistently succeed in hitting Hamas hard.”
While some analysts have argued that the terms
of the ceasefire with Hamas put Israel at a disadvantage, Barak said
there was no difference between the ceasefire terms and the terms of
previous agreements.
Senior Defense Ministry official Amos Gilad said the
ceasefire agreement did not mark an Israeli capitulation or
relinquishment of its rights to defend itself, including its right to
launch targeted killings of Palestinian terror suspects. In an interview
Thursday with Israel Radio, Gilad noted that the purpose of the
agreement was to defend Israel’s citizens, and that new threats would be
dealt with as they emerged.
Gilad said that, in Gaza, Israel had to act
with full force, but also had to “know when to stop.” Re-occupying the
territory, which Israel handed over to the Palestinians in 2005, was a
military possibility, he said, but one that would have “serious
repercussions” for Israel’s relations with its neighbors.
Chief of General Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz also said that the army had achieved its objectives in Gaza.
“We hit the leaders of Hamas, the rockets, and the buried launchers,” he said in a meeting with soldiers in the south. “After
eight days of fighting we stopped, and it’s too early to say what will
be… We have all the authority to act as necessary. There will be
challenges, and we will overcome them no matter what.”
Earlier, Labor Party leader Shelly Yachimovich
praised the success of the Iron Dome system — which was initiated by
her political rival, former defense minister Amir Peretz — for the
protection it afforded civilians and for the operational freedom it gave
the government in dealing with the threats from Gaza. A high death toll
in Israel would have forced the government’s hand.
“We acted like a responsible opposition and
supported the government in the conditions it laid down at the opening
of the conflict,” Yachimovich told Israel Radio.
She said she hoped the ceasefire would hold.
But given the prevailing conditions at the start of the operation, she
said, she was unsure Pillar of Defense had yielded the desired results
for Israel.
Opposition leader and former military chief of
staff Shaul Mofaz of the Kadima party criticized the government for the
agreement, which he said did not guarantee the safety of Israeli
citizens and did not mark the defeat of Hamas.
The agreement was not a ceasefire but a “postponement of fire,” he said.
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