Navigate to News section

Bibi: ‘We Will Continue Until the Goal is Reached’

Doesn’t address whether or not Hamas commander was killed in Gaza strike

by
Stephanie Butnick
August 20, 2014
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gives a press conference on August 6, 2014.(JIM HOLLANDER/AFP/Getty Images)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gives a press conference on August 6, 2014.(JIM HOLLANDER/AFP/Getty Images)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held a press conference Wednesday night about the re-eascalation of fighting in Gaza following Hamas rockets that broke Tuesday’s ceasefire agreement.

He waxed confident on Operation Protective Edge, saying, “In recent weeks we’ve dealt Hamas a harsh blow. We’ve prevented, via Iron Dome, thousands of rockets from hitting our communities, and we destroyed thousands of rockets.”

He pointedly didn’t address whether Mohammed Deif, the commander of Hamas’s military wing, had been killed in a targeted Israeli strike on the home he was believed to be hiding out in. Hamas officials said the assassination attempt was unsuccessful, though Deif’s wife and infant child were among the five people killed in the blast.

Asked about Deif by a reporter, Netanyahu replied only, “Heads of terror organizations are targets, none are immune.”

The IDF reported more than 180 rockets fired from Gaza since the truce dissolved yesterday (Iron Dome intercepted two rockets about Tel Aviv just before Netanyahu’s press conferece), and said they’ve carried out nearly 100 airstrikes during the same period.

Stephanie Butnick is chief strategy officer of Tablet Magazine, co-founder of Tablet Studios, and a host of the Unorthodox podcast.