Benjamin Netanyahu, who is tipped to become Israel’s prime minister in an election next month, accused Hamas on Thursday of pursuing its ”terror efforts” despite a ceasefire in the Gaza war.
”We’ll deal with it,” the right-wing Likud leader told reporters on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos when asked about new Israeli air attacks against Gaza and new rocket attacks against Israel.
”Regrettably we see that Hamas continues its terror efforts,” said Netanyahu, whose party has a wide lead in opinion polls ahead of the February 10 parliamentary election.
”Clearly, Hamas is committed to continuing its fanatical mission of destroying Israel, continues to import weapons through the tunnels, the smuggling tunnels, and sooner or later Israel will have to deal with this. We can’t leave our citizens unprotected against this rain of rockets.”
He added: ”What agenda can you have against an organisation that seeks to obliterate you from the face of the Earth?”
”Obviously, you’re faced with two types of adversary. You have adversaries or former enemies who you talk to or compromise with in order to make peace, so those are the enemies who want peace.
”But your enemies who don’t want peace, they just want to obliterate you, they are really not partners for anything. Is al-Qaeda a partner for peace?”
After 10 days of calm, Israeli warplanes bombed smuggling tunnels on Gaza’s border with Egypt and militants in the coastal strip fired two rockets into the Jewish state.
More than 1 300 Palestinians were killed in an Israeli offensive against Gaza this month aiming to end Hamas attacks. — AFP
