Israel will employ measures to counter the ongoing Palestinian rocket fire on the western Negev, but such measures will not include an invasion of the Gaza Strip, President Shimon Peres told the London-based newspaper Asharq al-Awsat in a report published on Saturday.
"Israel will take all steps demanded of it in order to stop the rocket fire," he said. "We will not go into Gaza. There are other ways - we didn't leave Gaza in order go back."
"The problem is that Hamas wants to do in the West Bank what they did in Gaza, to start another uprising," Peres continued. "[Hamas] is the one which is preventing the establishment of a Palestinian state. Without Hamas, there would've already been a Palestinian state."
|