Liberman: No possibility of an agreement with Hamas

"We will not restore quiet and calm to the South without dealing the most severe blow we can.”

By GIL HOFFMAN
Updated: OCTOBER 29, 2018 16:50
Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman, October 29, 2018 (photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)
Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman, October 29, 2018
(photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)
Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman continued his calls for a stronger approach to Hamas in the Gaza Strip Monday in a meeting of his Yisrael Beytenu faction.
“There is no need to continue to wait,” he said. “There is no path to an agreement with Hamas. We will not restore quiet and calm to the South without dealing the most severe blow we can.”
Liberman said he saw the residents of the South protest the government’s inaction and he believes they are 100 percent correct.
“The story has gone on for seven months,” he said. “We tried all the options, and the fact is that last Friday, Gaza residents endured 43 rockets and red alerts, and this clearly cannot go on.”
Liberman said Israel would not accept Hamas’s demand of economic benefits like Qatari gas while they continue their violence. He said he opposed a ground invasion.
“We have enough ways to restore quiet and clam without a ground invasion,” he said. “In my opinion, even if we kill 40,000 Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists, it is not worth losing one Israeli life.”
Liberman's statements were toned down compared to last week, when he told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that “Wars are only conducted when there is no choice, and now there is no choice.”