(CNN) Wolf Blitzer - Blitzer: Your exit strategy from Gaza, what is it? Netanyahu: Sustainable quiet. I mean we didn't seek this escalation, Hamas forced it on us. They started rocketing our cities, steadily increasing the fire. I called for de-escalation, they refused. I accepted an Egyptian cease-fire proposal backed up by the Arab League and the UN, they refused. I accepted a humanitarian lull proposed by the UN, they refused. We'll stop our operations when we can bring back quiet to our people. I support taking whatever action is necessary to stop this insane situation. Just imagine what Israel is going through. Imagine that 75% of the U.S. population is under rocket fire, and they have to be in bomb shelters within 60 to 90 seconds. That's impossible, you can't live like that. So we have to restore reasonable, sustained quiet and security, and we'll take whatever action is necessary to achieve that. They've already fired 2,000 rockets on our cities in the past few days. They've wanted to kill as many Israelis as they could. They haven't succeeded, not for lack of trying. In addition to the rockets, they've now got terror tunnels that they build in Palestinian homes in Gaza, they penetrate underground into Israeli territory, terrorists pop up there, try to murder civilians, kidnap Israelis, as they did with Gilad Shalit, so we're taking action right now to neutralize those tunnels. We're sad for every civilian casualty. They're not intended. This is the difference between us. Hamas deliberately targets civilians and deliberately hides behind civilians. They fire on us from civilian areas. What choice do we have? We have to protect ourselves. They want to pile up as many civilian dead as they can, because they use telegenically dead Palestinians for their cause. They want the more dead, the better.
2014-07-21 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive