More Quotes
“The Prime Minister spoke to Prime Minister Netanyahu earlier this evening about the situation in Israel and Gaza. The Prime Minister noted the ongoing rocket attacks from Hamas and reiterated the UK’s strong support for Israel’s right to take proportionate action to defend itself from them. The Prime Minister expressed condolences for the deaths of Israeli troops and concern about mounting civilian casualties in Gaza. The Prime Minister agreed with Prime Minister Netanyahu that the way out of the spiral of violence was for both sides to observe a lasting ceasefire in line with the initiative that was put forward by Egypt.” (A statement issued by a Downing Street spokesperson, following Prime Minister David Cameron’s conversation with Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, 20/07/2014)
“If Hamas had accepted the Egyptian proposal, it could save the lives of at least 40 Palestinians … The parties that oppose the Egyptian cease-fire initiative bear responsibility for the Palestinian blood being shed.” (Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry in an interview, 17/07/2014)
“We’re going to continue to encourage diplomatic efforts to restore the ceasefire, and we support Egypt’s continued efforts to bring this about … Over the next 24 hours, we’ll continue to stay in close contact with our friends and parties in the region, and we will use all of our diplomatic resources and relationships to support efforts of closing a deal on a ceasefire.” (US President Barak Obama speaking to reporters in a wide-ranging foreign policy statement, 16/07/2014)
“Since Israel uses its arms to protect its civilians, whereas Hamas uses its civilians to protect its weapons, there has been a predictable asymmetry of casualties. But proportionality is not a tit-for-tat numbers game. Only perverse logic would deem Israel’s actions more proportionate if Israel allowed more of its civilians to be killed. Proportionality is measured with regard to the threat one faces. In Israel’s case this threat is a stockpile of thousands of rockets and missiles, threatening the bulk of Israel’s population, in the hands of a terrorist regime committed to Israel’s destruction.” (Israeli Ambassador to the UK Daniel Taub writing in the Independent, 15/07/2014)
“We are doing all we can to bring this indiscriminate rocket fire against Israel to an end … We want the children of Israel to be able to live normal lives, to go to school and to play outdoors. Israel has a responsibility to protect its women and children who are sitting in bomb shelters day and night.
Hamas is threatening and firing rockets without reason, they have no constructive proposals. The children of Gaza are also suffering as a result of Hamas and I hope the people of Gaza will act to bring an end to Hamas’s madness.
None of us want to see people suffering and it is clear who began this offensive and who is looking to put an end to it and find a positive way forward … This is not a simple situation, there are multiple terror organisations and some of them do not cooperate with one another leading to continued firing and continued destruction.” (Israeli President Shimon Peres speaking to journalists at the President’s Residence in Jerusalem, 14/07/2014)
“The leadership of Hamas and the other organisations has chosen – at a time when they are using the population of Gaza as human shields – to hide under ground, to flee abroad and to deliberately put civilians in the line of fire. This is the entire difference between us and Hamas – we are using defensive systems against missiles to protect the residents of Israel and they are using the residents of Gaza to protect arsenals of missiles.
Nothing better underscores the difference in this campaign. Israel is a democracy that is fighting – in a legitimate and focused manner – against unbridled terrorists and no country in the world would do any less than we are doing to protect our citizens.” (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to an Israeli cabinet meeting)