Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday vowed to continue the attacks on Gaza Strip until the Palestinian territory is demilitarized.
Speaking to reporters after his talks with visiting Italian Foreign Minister Federica Mogherini in Jerusalem, he said: "Hamas is committing war crimes in the Gaza Strip and the only solution is to make the area demilitarized." Netanyahu blasted Hamas and other Palestinian resistance groups for rejecting the Egyptian ceasefire initiative proposed on Monday, saying: "Yesterday I accepted the Egyptian ceasefire proposal." He added: "We held our fire for six hours, and during that time Hamas continue to barrage our cities with rockets. Hamas thus shut the door to a diplomatic solution and it therefore bears the sole responsibility for the continuation of the violence." Netanyahu vowed that Israel would not sit back and let its population centers come under attack, saying: "Those who are firing at us are seeking the disappearance of Israel, the destruction of Israel. And so for them we have one answer: we will fight you and we will defeat you." Meanwhile, the Palestinian resistance groups in Gaza claimed responsibility for more missile attacks on southern Israeli towns.
Al-Quds Brigades, the armed wing of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, said in a statement this evening that its fighters fired six Grad rockets at Beersheba and Netivot.
Similarly, Ezz Eddin Al-Qassam, the military wing of Hamas, said it targeted Netivot with three Grads and launched mortar attacks on Israeli military camps around Gaza.
Other military bases in south Israel were also attacked, it said, adding that it sent SMSs to Israeli citizens calling on them to apply pressures on their government to end the military onslaught on Gaza.