The Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, stated this Saturday that his country is “embarking on a long and difficult war,” imposed by the Palestinian movement Hamas, which on Saturday carried out an unprecedented attack against Israeli territory, which, together with the Israeli military response, has so far caused the death of 300 Israelis and 232 Palestinians.
EL TIEMPO spoke with Gali Dagan, Israel’s ambassador to Colombia, about the balance of Hamas’ attacks against the country and the measures they will take after the escalation of violence.
What is your position regarding the situation that occurred yesterday after the unprecedented attack against Israeli security?
In Israel and throughout the Jewish world we celebrate this Saturday what is known as the Bible’s holiday of joy. It means that we finish reading the Bible that we all read all year and start reading the Bible again.
And on this sacred day for us, at half past six in the morning, Hamas launched more than 2,000 missiles and rockets towards the south and central Israel, including in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. And under this fire, dozens of terrorists and Hamas militants infiltrated the villages next to our border with the Gaza Strip.
They found civilians in bed and killed them in cold blood, women, children and men. They also kidnapped people and took them to the Gaza Strip.
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It is the most difficult situation we have had in the last 50 years. It is an act of aggressiveness by Hamas that we are going to respond to very strongly. We are in a war against Hamas and we are going to react very harshly against Hamas for these very aggressive actions against us and against our civilians.
-The head of Hamas said that he envisions a ‘great victory’ in the offensive against Israel. How do they respond to the group’s position?
Suddenly they were successful in killing many Israeli civilians and soldiers. But the cost that they are going to have to pay for this supposed victory of image, of propaganda, is going to be very high.
This supposed victory is a sign that Hamas is a terrorist organization that has no limits, that kill civilians, children and women. They kidnap women and children according to some of the rumors that exist. They also attacked an electronic music festival in southern Israel. They attacked hundreds of young Israelis dancing to techno music and killed many of them.
This victory has no victory. It is a sample, it is the face and face of the terrible Hamas.
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Why is this unprecedented escalation of violence a warning situation for the Middle East and perhaps for the world?
I don’t know if for the world, but I think Hamas thought that the internal situation in Israel now is an opportunity. He very wrongly interpreted the strong political debate that exists in Israel today, which is the only democracy in the Middle East.
He, as a totalitarian and terrorist regime, understood the Israeli political debate as a weakness and supposedly tried to take advantage of this weakness. to attack Israel. But I think that in a very few days you will discover that it was not a weakness, it was the strength of our society as a strong and vibrant democracy. Hamas will later think about whether it was the best option to attack us because the price will be very high.
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-What other steps will Israel take after this Saturday’s attack?
Hamas took control of some southern Israeli towns on the border, where the attack has not yet ended. There are still hostages, there are still Hamas terrorists inside our territories killing people. There is a lot of uncertainty about the situation, but they have hostages in some places.
In the first stage we will have to eliminate the Hamas terrorists, a terrorist organization that has an army and who are also allies of Iran. We have to regain tranquility and recover our sovereignty.
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Today it launched one of the strongest attacks we have had in all our 75 years of existence
The second objective is to attack Hamas’s war infrastructure, its commands and its leadership in a very strong way. because it is a terrorist organization and it has to pay a very high price for everything it has done this day, which, again, is a tragedy for us. Each of us at the Embassy knows people who are dead or injured or still do not know what happened to them. So for us also as an Embassy it is something that hurts us a lot.
It must be remembered that in 2005 Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip and left the Palestinians an economic infrastructure. The Gaza Strip could be the Singapore of the Middle East, but the Palestinians decided to change a country into a terrorist entity. An Afghanistan instead of a Singapore.
AND We have next to us a terrorist entity that today launched one of the strongest attacks that we have had in all our 75 years of existence.
ANGIE NATALY RUIZ HURTADO
INTERNATIONAL EDITORIAL
TIME
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