Gilad Erdan: There may be a military operation in Gaza in the coming days
Erdan clarified that the state, of course, needed to try other means to achieve quiet before going to war, but that, after multiple attempts, negotiation attempts between Hamas and Israel had failed.
By TZVI JOFFREA soldier stands near a battery of cannons near the Gaza border, March 28th, 2019(photo credit: AMIR COHEN/REUTERS)
"There may be a military operation and there may be other actions in the coming days, it's dependent on many things," said Strategic Affairs Minister Gilad Erdan in an interview with Kan news on Saturday.Erdan clarified that the state, of course, needed to try other means to achieve quiet before going to war, but that, after multiple attempts, negotiation attempts between Hamas and Israel had failed."When we talk about an agreement, we tried and we tried and we tried, it didn't succeed," said Erdan. "Hamas, even though there were 300 [Palestinians] that we killed when they were trying to breach the border fence in the Friday protests, continues to allow the chaos from the Gaza Strip, and therefore there is an understanding today that there will be a need to go into a military operation. The time will be chosen by us and we won't notify them beforehand."On Friday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel might head to a military operation in the Gaza Strip before elections take place, according to Channel 13."It looks like there will be no other choice but to embark on a wide-scale campaign in Gaza," said Netanyahu.“There probably won’t be a choice but to topple the Hamas regime. Hamas doesn’t exert its sovereignty in the Strip and doesn’t prevent attacks,” he said. “We have a situation in which a terror group that launches rockets has taken over, and doesn’t rein in rogue factions even when it wants to.”Tamar Beeri, Rossella Tercatin and Anna Ahronheim contributed to this report.
