‘’Israel accepted five different ceasefire proposals and truce offers, which were all rejected by Hamas,’’ Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday.
“And now Hamas breaks the ceasefire it itself had asked for, and continues to fire at Israeli civilians. Israel will do whatever is necessary to guarantee the security interests of Israeli citizens,’’ he said in several talk shows in the US media (Fox News, NBC, CBS and CNN.).
“The money from the international community given for the building of kindergartens for Gaza residents has been used for the construction of tunnels intended to blow up Israeli kindergartens,” he said, adding that ‘’economic assistance to the people of Gaza needs to be connected to the demilitarization of the Strip.’’
He said the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) ‘’will continue to destroy Hamas’s terror tunnel, until its objective is met: restoring calm to Israel’s cities.’
Netanyahu also publicly rejected a cease-fire proposal put forth over the weekend by US Secretary of State John Kerry, saying the only proposal on the table was the Egyptian proposal that Hamas rejected some two weeks ago.
That proposal called for an immediate halt to violence, followed 48-hours later by indirect negotiations in Cairo for a longer term arrangement. This proposal called for Palestinian Authority security officers to be placed on the border crossings.
The US proposal, a modified version of a Turkish and Qatari proposal put forward earlier, included calls for arrangements for opening the border crossings, allowing the entry of goods and people, expanded fishing rights and the transfer of funds to Gaza.
Public opinion in Israel is solidly against ending Operation Protective Edge in the Gaza Strip according to a poll released Sunday.
The poll was conducted by respected pollster Mina Tzemach among 504 respondents, a representative sample of the Hebrew-speaking Israeli adult population. It was sponsored by strategist Roni Rimon, who once worked with Likud and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, but now insists he took it at his own initiative for his own curiosity.
When asking about a potential cease-fire, the poll gave two choices. The first endorsed a cease-fire because "Israel had enough achievements, soldiers have died, and it is time to stop." The second said Israel cannot accept a cease-fire because "Hamas continues firing missiles on Israel, not all the tunnels have been found, and Hamas has not surrendered."
Only 9.7 percent chose option one, 86.5% option two, and 3.8% said they did not know. Men were more likely to want the operation to continue than women.