Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stood his ground over Israel’s incursion into Gaza on Sunday, saying any civilian bloodshed is on Hamas’ hands.
Netanyahu told CBS’s “Face the Nation” that Israel has had no choice but to bomb known Hamas strongholds in the wake of recent rocket attacks by the terrorist group against Israel.
Israel will not pull back militarily until it has achieved “sustainable quiet and security for our people,” Netanyahu said.
“We use whatever means are necessary to defend our people, as would the United States or any other government faced with such a predicament.”
Netanyahu acknowledged the inevitable loss of innocent life.
“So naturally, they [Hamas] are responsible for all the civilian deaths that occur accidentally,” he said.
“We’re sorry for any accidental civilian deaths, but it’s the Hamas that bears complete responsibility for such civilian casualties.”
Netanyahu accused Hamas of firing rockets from posts “in homes, hospitals, next to kindergartens, mosques,” thus forcing Israel to take out those civilian-heavy targets.
Meanwhile thousands of Palestinian residents fled to UN shelters after Israel deployed ground forces on the Gaza Strip and dropped leaflets urging residents to evacuate and seek refuge.
The United Nations on Saturday urged both sides to cease fire.
Hamas has launched 130 rockets into Israel over 24 hours, the Israeli military said on Sunday.
“We cannot accept that and will take the necessary actions to stop it,” Netanyahu told “Fox News Sunday.”
“We’ll do what any country [under similar attack] would do.”
At one point during Netanyahu’s “Face the Nation” chat, sirens could be heard in the background.
But those were good-news horns, Netanyahu said, signaling the end of a rocket alert in Tel Aviv.
“What you are hearing right now, that’s the calm alert,” Netanyahu told “Face the Nation” host Bob Schieffer.
“In other words, when we began this interview, we were under bomb alert, and as the minutes passed, now we are being told that people can go out into the open air again. This is the kind of reality we are living in, Bob. And we’ll do whatever’s necessary to put an end to this.”
Later in the same show, Israeli Ambassador to the United States Ron Dermer’s iPhone went off like a siren. It was an app telling him that the city of Gedera was under attack.
“A rocket now is heading as we speak to Gedera — that’s actually the village my mother was born in,” Dermer said holding up his blaring phone.
Schieffer responded, “Let’s hope that siren doesn’t go off too many more times before some solution can be found to this.”