Israeli minister Regev calls to assassinate Hamas leaders

Israel should assassinate Hamas leaders, Culture and Sport Minister Miri Regev said Thursday, in response to a day of recurrent rocket launches from Gaza.

“The equation should be very simple: If our children live in fear, then the leadership of Hamas should live in fear,” Regev said. “We must go back to the policy of targeted assassinations of leaders of this murderous terrorist group.”

Regev spoke with mayors of towns in the South, and commended them for their strength.

“They told me about the inconceivable reality of children who cannot enjoy camp and social activities like the rest of the children in Israel,” she said. “This is not what their summer vacation should look like.”

Zionist Union leader Avi Gabbay said on his visit to Sderot that Israel has “a strong army and weak politicians,” and accused Netanyahu and Liberman of “allowing Hamas to decide when the violence begins and ends.”

“There is no Jewish community in the world that suffers from continuous terrorism like the residents of the [Gaza] envelope,” Gabbay said. “Nowhere in the world do children run scared from playgrounds. We can’t allow this to continue.”

The current government “doesn’t know how to deter a terrorist organization or to negotiate,” he added.

The Zionist Union leader vowed his party will separate politics from security and rehabilitate Israeli deterrence.

Yesh Atid chairman Yair Lapid also visited Sderot on Thursday, but he pointed his barbs at Hamas, not the government.

“Hamas has to understand that Israel will not tolerate nights like the one we just had, with rockets and mortars being fired at our women and children,” Lapid said. “We will not sit on our hands while our children are bombed by a terrorist organization which uses its own children as human shields. Israel has every right to protect itself from terrorism.”

Meretz MK Michal Rozin called for the government to continue negotiations.

“We are at a critical point in time that will decide how the rest of the summer will look for many families in the South and the entire country,” she said, adding now is the time “to act responsibly and with restraint, and to exhaust all possibilities for a dialogue with the partners in negotiations. In war, everyone loses.”

Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein said, “I support our troops and the residents of the South for standing strong in the face of Hamas terror. I trust that the prime minister, defense minister and security cabinet members will make the necessary decisions for the security of Israeli residents.”

Perpetual contrarian Likud MK Oren Hazan, however, lamented, “We are not hitting Hamas hard enough for fear of an ongoing conflict, even though we are deep inside one. If we would have hit them, they wouldn’t have allowed themselves to shoot 200 rockets in one day. So enough with the stories that we hit them hard. The public isn’t stupid, and neither is Hamas.”