Israel minister: Assassinate Hamas leaders

Israel’s Culture Minister Miri Regev said yesterday that the army should carry out extrajudicial executions of Hamas leaders in the occupied Gaza Strip, the Jerusalem Post reported.

“The equation should be very simple: If our children live in fear, then the leadership of Hamas should live in fear,” Regev said.

“We must go back to the policy of targeted assassinations of leaders of this murderous terrorist group.”

Labor leader Avi Gabbay, meanwhile, declared that Israel has “a strong army and weak politicians”, accusing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman of “allowing Hamas to decide when the violence begins and ends”.

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The current government “doesn’t know how to deter a terrorist organisation or to negotiate,” he added.

Likud MK Oren Hazan urged the government to go further. “We are not hitting Hamas hard enough for fear of an ongoing conflict, even though we are deep inside one.”

“If we would have hit them, they wouldn’t have allowed themselves to shoot 200 rockets in one day. So enough with the stories that we hit them hard. The public isn’t stupid, and neither is Hamas.”

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