More than a week after the first deadly exchanges of fire between Hamas and the Jewish state army, the Israeli prime minister is keeping the pressure on.

Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday that he would not rule out having to "come to the end" of Palestinian Hamas, in power in the Gaza Strip, if the option of "deterrence" fails, after more than a week of deadly firefights .

"There are only two possibilities to confront them, either you overcome them - and it is always a possibility - or you dissuade them and we are currently engaged in a firm deterrence," the prime minister told reporters. ambassadors in Tel Aviv.

"I must say that we are not ruling out any possibility," he added.

The "maximum" to "avoid civilian casualties"

"What we are trying to do is precisely this: decrease their capabilities, their terrorist means, and decrease their determination," he continued.

“We hope to be able to restore calm and we hope to be able to restore it quickly.

I mean we are doing this by doing our utmost to avoid civilian casualties ”.

Since the start of this new round of violence between Israel and armed groups in the Gaza Strip, led by Hamas, at least 219 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli strikes on the densely populated and blockaded Palestinian enclave, according to the local health ministry.

A "cease-fire" under consideration

On the Israeli side, twelve people died after rocket strikes in the direction of Israeli territory, according to the police.

The Israeli forces say they targeted, in addition to rocket launching sites, several Hamas headquarters, houses of its leaders, equipment and undergrounds used for the movement of munitions and militants.

Israel is studying "the question of the opportune moment for a ceasefire," a senior Israeli military official said earlier, saying that the Jewish state was however ready for an extension of the offensive on the Palestinian enclave of two years. millions of inhabitants.

"We did not seek this conflict"

"We did not seek this conflict," Netanyahu insisted on Wednesday, arguing that the outbreak of violence was the consequence of the postponement of the Palestinian legislative elections which were to be held on May 22, the first in fifteen years.

Palestinian Hamas and Fatah had agreed to organize legislative and presidential elections in 2021, after years of hostility between the two rival camps, Islamists and secularists.

But the President of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas decided at the end of April to postpone the legislative elections as long as the holding of the poll was not "guaranteed" in East Jerusalem.

"Hamas was sure to gain considerable power" in this election, said Mr. Netanyahu, accusing the Islamist movement of having wanted to use the clashes in East Jerusalem "to incite violence in order to achieve its own political objectives ”For lack of elections.

“We did not expect such a conflagration,” he added.

World

Israeli-Palestinian conflict: Watch out for this hijacked photo accusing Israel of using white phosphorus

World

Israeli-Palestinian conflict: Israel studies the advisability of a "ceasefire" in Gaza

  • World

  • Hamas

  • Gaza

  • Benjamin Netanyahu

  • Israel

  • Israeli army

  • Israelo-Palestinian conflict