Lieberman: lifting the siege means bringing Hezbollah to Gaza

Israeli Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman said yesterday that Hamas had crossed all red lines, stressing that the Israeli cabinet “must” take a decision to launch a “serious blow” to the Palestinian resistance movement, Israeli media have reported.

During a meeting with Israeli commanders and Israeli soldiers in charge of the Gaza division, he said: “We are not willing to accept the level of violence we see one week after another… a serious blow to Hamas could bring us at least five more years of quiet.”

He added: “The defence establishment did everything to [solve] the situation before 29 March before the violence broke out – we did this our way, by using force, by using persuasion, by cooperating with those who wanted to help.”

Who is to blame for Gaza? – Cartoon [Carlos Latuff/MiddleEastMonitor]

Israeli news website Ynet News reported him saying that the “serious blow… must be a decision of the cabinet. Unfortunately, neither the defence minister nor the prime minister can make such a decision on their own.”

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The goal of the Palestinians in Gaza, he said, “is to lift the siege, which means one thing: uninterrupted free ability to bring in weapons, Hezbollah fighters and Iranians into the Gaza Strip – and we will never allow that”.