Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,
today (Tuesday, 22 July 2014), at the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv,
made the following remarks at his meeting with UN Secretary General Ban
Ki-moon:
"Mr. Secretary, I appreciate the fact that you came here and that
you took time to see what we've just shown you. I think it's clear that
Israel is doing what any country would do if terrorists rained down
rockets on its cities and towns - hundreds of rockets, day after day,
week after week. In addition, as I've shown you, Hamas has dug terrorist
tunnels under hospitals, mosques, schools, homes, to penetrate our
territory, to kidnap and kill Israelis.
Now, in the face of such wanton terrorism, no country could sit
idly by. It would exercise its right, inherent and legitimate right of
self-defense as we are doing, and act decisively to end the threat to
its citizens. This is what Israel is doing.
We did not seek this escalation, Mr. Secretary. We accepted the
Egyptian ceasefire proposal. I don't need to remind you it was a
proposal that was supported by the UN, by the Arab League, by the United
States, by Europe. Hamas rejected it. We accepted the humanitarian
ceasefire proposal that the UN proposed afterward. Hamas rejected that.
We accepted the ceasefire proposal of the Red Cross in Shejaia. Hamas
rejected that, twice.
I think the international community must take a clear stand; it
must hold Hamas accountable for consistently rejecting the ceasefire
proposals and for starting and prolonging this conflict. The
international community must hold Hamas accountable for its increasing
and indiscriminate attacks on Israeli civilians. And the international
community must hold Hamas accountable for using Palestinian civilians as
human shields deliberately putting them in harm's way, deliberately
keeping them in harm's way.
Mr. Secretary, we have made every effort and will continue to make
every effort to avoid civilian casualties. We are targeting Hamas
terrorist targets. We've just shown you these targets, embedded in
civilian areas, embedded in mosques, embedded in hospitals, embedded in
agricultural schools. Hamas is embedded in there in order to sustain
civilian casualties, because they know that we will have to protect our
citizens; that we have to act against their targets. So they are
committing a double war crime: both targeting our civilians and hiding
behind their civilians. And they want - I repeat - they want more
civilian casualties, whereas we want no civilian casualties at all, and
we're taking the utmost pain to minimize that.
I think the people of Gaza, and that's become absolutely clear to
the world, are the victims of the brutal Hamas regime. They are holding
them hostage and they are hiding behind them.
You know, Mr. Secretary, the international community has pressed us
to give cement to Gaza to build schools, hospitals, homes. And now we
see what has happened to those deliveries of cement. They have been used
to dig tunnels next to a kindergarten, not to build a kindergarten but
to build a tunnel that penetrates our territory so that Hamas can blow
up our kindergartens and murder our children.
They've used for a long time our willingness to try to keep
civilians at a minimum. They've been using them to keep on firing at us.
We have even opened up a field hospital, Mr. Secretary, to help Hamas
civilians, and Hamas is preventing civilians of Gaza from going to our
hospital. I believe that you understand this. I believe that you
understand that it is the right of every state to defend itself. And
Israel will continue to do what it needs to do to defend its people.
Mr. Secretary, this is not only our right; this is our duty."