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Israel PM Netanyahu tells US talkshows Hamas violated own ceasefire Israel PM Netanyahu tells US talkshows Hamas violated own ceasefire
(about 2 hours later)
The Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, toured the US political talkshows on Sunday, appearing on CNN, CBS, NBC and Fox 20 days into Israel's offensive against the Gaza Strip. In his appearances he said, repeatedly, that Hamas had violated its own offer of a 24-hour humanitarian truce in Gaza. The Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, has accused Hamas of “violating its own ceasefire” in the Gaza conflict. After a cessation of hostilities on Saturday, Hamas on Sunday offered a 24-hour humanitarian truce, starting from 2pm local time.
Asked if Israel would accept the truce, Netanyahu told CNN's State of the Union: "Hamas doesn't even accept its own ceasefire, it's continuing to fire at us as we speak." Netanyahu, who toured the US political talkshows to appear on CNN, CBS, NBC and Fox, repeatedly asked how Americans would feel if their countries were under threat from what he called a “terrorist operation”.
Netanyahu added that Israel "will take whatever action is necessary to protect our people”. “If America was attacked by land, by sea, by air, you would take action, and Israel is taking action to neutralise this threat,” he said, on CNN's State of the Union.
Mohammad Shtayyeh, minister of the Palestinian Economic Council for Research and Development, told CNN people under siege would react to defend themselves and that was what was happening in Gaza. He said the only answer was for Israel to accommodate Palestinian demands for ending occupation and for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state. "Hamas is simply continuing all its operations and Israel will not let this terrorist operation be decided simply when it's convenient for them to attack us and convenient for them to reload."
Hamas said it had offered a 24-hour "humanitarian calm" period that had been due to start at 2pm local time on Sunday. However, as 2pm came and went, the sound of heavy Israeli shelling could be heard within Gaza and sirens sounded in Israeli communities near the border area, suggesting Palestinian militants had fired missiles at them. Netanyahu made repeated reference to the construction of “terror tunnels” to facilitate attacks on Israeli territory; on NBC's Meet the Press he referred to the existence of an underground “terror kingdom”.
Some 1,060 Palestinians, mainly civilians and including many children, have been killed in the 20-day conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hamas. Israel says 43 of its soldiers have died, along with three civilians. “Hamas does not even accept its own ceasefire. It’s continuing to fire at us as we speak,” he told CNN, from Tel Aviv. “We did not resume our offensive, we had a ceasefire and they violated it.”
In an interview on Fox News Sunday, Netanyahu said Hamas had broken five ceasefires that Israel had accepted and implemented. Netanyahu said Israel wanted to “get to a sustained quiet” in the region as soon as possible but he did not deny that his country was planning a broader ground offensive in Gaza and insisted he would take “whatever action is necessary” to defend Israelis.
"They rejected all of them, violated all of them, including two humanitarian ceasefires in the last 24 hours," Netanyahu said. "I hope we achieve a sustainable quiet that will enable us to address the issue of demilitarising Gaza," he told CBS's Face the Nation. "And if Hamas is weak and discredited and demilitarised then we may have a chance to work something with the more moderate forces and get a better future for all of us."
He told NBC's Meet the Press that a peace initiative being brokered by the Egyptian government was “the only game in town”. He added that Israel's goal was the "demilitarisation of Gaza”. Asked about international protests over the more than 1,000 Palestinian deaths that have resulted from the latest hostilities, many of them civilians and children, Netanyahu acknowledged that the conflict was making Israel unpopular, but blamed Hamas.
On CNN, he said: “Hamas is betting on this. Hamas is betting on the fact that people do not have the context, that they can hoodwink people and mislead the world.”
He accused Hamas of deliberately basing its military operations in schools, hospitals, homes and mosques in Gaza and said that when Israel warned civilians to get out of the way of Israel’s return fire, Hamas made them stay as human shields.
“They want to pile up more and more dead bodies of Palestinian civilians. Hamas is responsible for that, Hamas should be held accountable for civilian deaths,” he said.
Speaking to CBS, Netanyahu acknowledged that Israel might lose the propaganda war but said his country's security had to outweigh such concerns.
Both sides in the conflict appeared to be looking to the possibility of new peace talks in Cairo, brokered by Egypt, which Netanyahu told NBC were “the only game in town”. But the Palestinian authorities accused Netanyahu of having a “hidden agenda” to destroy any conciliation.
Mohammad Shtayyeh, an adviser to Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, who spoke to CNN, said a delegation was being assembled to go to Cairo. He said interventions by the US secretary of state, John Kerry, had been helpful, but with 80% of casualties in Gaza being civilians, it was Israel which was ratcheting up tension, not Hamas.
“These people have nowhere to go,” Shtayyeh said of the residents of Gaza, one of the most densely populated strips of land in the world. Shtayyeh called on Israel to end its “siege” of Gaza and the “misery” of the Palestinians there. Gaza has been the subject of an Israeli blockade for the past seven years.
He said President Abbas had “come to terms with Hamas, that they are accepting a two-state solution and they are for long-term quietness” and added: “We are designing a conciliation [agreement] on our terms, not Hamas’s terms.”
Netanyahu said he wanted two parts to a solution that went hand in hand – security for Israel and social and economic relief for the Palestinians that went to the people and not to Hamas, “to build tunnels that come up under our cities and explode our children”.