Netanyahu: Gaza terror leaders know Israel can target them anywhere

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held a series of talks with Defense Minister Naftali Bennett, IDF Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi ,Shin Bet Director Nadav Argaman and other top military and security officials on Wednesday and said “we have agreed on a series of follow-up steps.” Since Tuesday, over 250 rockets were fired on Israel from the Gaza Strip following the targeted elimination of Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader Bahaa Abu al-Ata. “We do not mean to escalate [the situation],” Netanyahu said, “but we will know how to…protect the state of Israel and its citizens.”

PM Netanyahu: “We have just finished a security consultation here at IDF Southern Command with the Defense Minister, the Chief-of-Staff, GOC intelligence and the NSA Director. We agreed on the future steps. pic.twitter.com/iOX2W5wHBi

— PM of Israel (@IsraeliPM) November 13, 2019

Israel’s decision to use targeted assassinations against Islamic Jihad leaders has created a new deterrence against Gaza violence, Netanyahu told regional councils heads from Gaza border communities on Wednesday. “Leaders of the terrorist organizations, commanders and activists know that they have become targets and that at any moment we can act against them in any space. They understand this message well,” Netanyahu said. He spoke a day after the IDF’s targeted killing of Islamic Jihad leader, Bahaa Abu al-Ata.  The Arab press has reported that Israel had conveyed a message via the United Nations to Islamic Jihad that it was prepared to assassinate its leaders in Syria if the rocket fire did not immediately cease. The UN has not yet responded to this report. Netanyahu told the leaders of the Gaza border communities that the terror organizations had not imagined that Israel would take this step.  “We executed the [military] operation with surgical precision,” Netanyahu said. “Every terrorist and commander knows that we can reach him personally,” Netanyahu said. He explained that terror organizations have used the civilian population in Gaza as human shields while they attack Israel. The IDF, he said, has now thwarted that practice by targeting al-Ata as he hid.
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