Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Wednesday the current retaliatory airstrikes in Gaza, that have so far killed several senior Hamas commanders, are only just the beginning.
After a number of senior Hamas commanders were killed in a joint operation between the IDF and Shin Bet, Netanyahu warned the operations in Gaza will not end any time soon.
“We eliminated senior Hamas commanders and this is just the beginning,” Netanyahu said about the targeted killing of four high-ranking Hamas figures. “We will inflict blows on them that they couldn’t even dream of.”
He added Israel would “continue to respond with increasing force.”
The terrorists killed were said to be directly under the head of the organization’s military wing, Mohammed Deif. Two other senior commanders were killed a day earlier, as Breitbart News reported.
“Our martyred leaders are the fuel for our project of liberating our land,” Hamas political bureau member Mousa Doudin said in response to the killings.
At least 50 Palestinians have died in the IDF’s airstrikes, most of whom the IDF said were either terrorists or killed by errant rockets that fell short of their target.
The IDF has been conducting its “roof-knock” policy, warning civilians to flee targeted buildings that terror commanders are using as hideouts.
More than 1,400 rockets were launched from the Hamas-ruled enclave into Israel in less than 24 hours, killing five people and injuring hundreds more.
Hamas warned that it would send another rocket barrage towards the evening to the Israel Tel Aviv metropolitan area in central Israel in response to the killings.
President Reuven Rivlin meanwhile called on the heads of state of Germany, Austria and Bulgaria, as well as with the president of the European Council, to condemn Iran-backed terrorism in Gaza.
“We will defend our citizens in every way necessary, and we will not stand by while we are being fired on. We will continue to attack those firing incessantly on our innocent civilians, and we will silence them,” Rivlin said in a statement.
“After several days of disorder on the streets of Jerusalem, Hamas has fired hundreds of rockets on Israel, targeting our capital Jerusalem, and houses on the outskirts of the city have been damaged,” he added.
“Hundreds of thousands of children and their families, most of Israel’s population, are in bomb shelters even now,” he said. “The rockets do not distinguish between Jews and Arabs.”
“No country in the world would allow brutal attacks like this and we will also not stand by. We will defend our citizens in every way necessary, and we will not stand by while we are being fired on. We will continue to attack those firing incessantly on our innocent civilians, and we will silence them,” he concluded.
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