Israel not ruling out conquest of Hamas in Gaza

 Times of Israel:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday that Israel was pursuing a policy of deterring the Gaza Strip’s Hamas rulers from launching attacks but did not rule out a further escalation, including “conquering” the Palestinian enclave.

Netanyahu gave a briefing to some 70 foreign diplomats at the Kirya military base in Tel Aviv, where he filled them in on the situation after over a week of fighting that has seen Gaza terror groups rain rockets down on Israel, which has responded with pounding airstrikes on Gaza.

There is increasing international pressure for the two sides to agree, via mediators, on a ceasefire.

Speaking of Gaza’s rulers, the Hamas terror group, which has led the rocket attacks, Netanyahu said, “You can either conquer them — and that’s always an open possibility — or you can deter them.”

“We are engaged right now in forceful deterrence, but I have to say, we are not ruling out anything,” the prime minister said.

Asked how much longer the operation will go on, Netanyahu said he could not give an exact timeframe for when it would end.

“We aren’t standing with a stopwatch. We are concerned with the objectives of the operation,” Netanyahu said.
...

Hamas, he said, “targets civilians while hiding behind civilians using them as human shields. This is the problem that we face — because Hamas is embedded deeply in civilian areas, because it uses civilian human shields. Democracies have a choice. They can say there is nothing we can do. We will absorb attacks against our cities. We can do that or we can level the cities. In World War II, when western cities, specifically London and some British cities, were targeted this way by thousands of rockets, their response was to level cities.”

Added Netanyahu: “I admire Winston Churchill. I think he was one of the greatest leaders in modern history. I don’t criticize him for anything. I think he did the right thing under those circumstances. But this is not our response to the firing of thousands of rockets on our cities. We do something different. We try to target those who target us with great precision.

“That is not a surgical operation as it is. Even in a surgical room in a hospital, you don’t have the ability to prevent collateral damage around an infected tissue. Even then you can’t. Certainly in a military operation you cannot.”

Nonetheless, he added, “There is no army in the world that does more than the Israeli army, in the Israeli security services, in Israeli intelligence to prevent collateral damage. To have Israel criticized for that is absurd. Not only is absurd and unjust and untrue, it does enormous damage to democracies that are fighting this kind of evil. It says you cannot protect yourself.

“Instead of having the perpetrators who commit double war crimes, who are hiding behind civilians and firing on civilians, not having them criticized but having you criticized is the height of hypocrisy and stupidity. What that does is in fact encourage the terrorists. It gives support, it gives encouragement to the terrorists and that is something that is bad for each one of us. I’m not shy about saying it openly, I think you should support Israel strongly because this is not merely a question of Israel’s security; it’s a question of our common security and our common interests in the Middle East,” he said.
...

It is more than passing strange that many in the media and in other countries have such unrealistic expectations of a country under attack by terrorists.  Netanyahu has it right when it comes to history and the response to attacks on cities.