Israeli PM says international pressure won't stop military strikes in Gaza

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told reporters Friday he has spoken with various world leaders about the Israeli military operation against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

|
Gali Tibbon/AP
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, left, arrives to chair the weekly cabinet meeting in his office in Jerusalem, Sunday, July 6, 2014.

Israel's prime minister says he will not cave in to international pressure to stop a military offensive in the Gaza Strip.

Benjamin Netanyahu told a news conference Friday that Israel will continue its offensive until rocket fire out of Gaza is halted.

He says he has had "good conversations" with a number of world leaders in recent days, including President Barack Obama and European leaders.

"No international pressure will prevent us from acting with all power," he said.

Netanyahu said Israel has attacked more than 1,000 targets in Gaza during the four-day operation and is using twice the force it used during a similar offensive in 2012. More than 100 Palestinians have been killed.

About the Gaza targets, the prime minister added "there are still more to go."

In remarks to reporters, he said he saw no international pressure on Israel to halt its campaign.

He also would not rule out the possibility of expanding the campaign of mostly aerial attacks into a ground war in Gaza, answering when asked whether such a move was possible that "we are weighing all possibilities and preparing for all possibilities."

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Israeli PM says international pressure won't stop military strikes in Gaza
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Latest-News-Wires/2014/0711/Israeli-PM-says-international-pressure-won-t-stop-military-strikes-in-Gaza
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe