Israel: Fight with Hamas to continue until deterrence attained

Operation Guardian of the Walls will continue until Hamas is deterred for the long term, Defense Minister Benny Gantz said in a phone call with US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin on Tuesday.

“The IDF’s military campaign will continue to the end of achieving long-term quiet,” Gantz said, pointing out to Austin that Hamas continues to fire rockets at civilian populations.

Netanyahu similarly said during a visit to the IAF base in Hatzerim that “we will continue as long as necessary to bring the quiet back to the citizens of Israel.”

“I am sure that all the enemies around us see how costly it is to attack us, and I am sure they will learn the lesson,” he added.

Gantz and Netanyahu’s remarks came as the US continued diplomatic efforts to bring about a ceasefire. Also on Tuesday, the EU Foreign Affairs Council held a meeting on the situation in Israel and Gaza, failing to produce a consensus statement calling for a ceasefire.

A senior official in Jerusalem said that, while the IDF has had major successes in striking Hamas, it has many more targets it wants to hit.

“When this ends, we want Hamas to have taken a really serious blow,” the official said, adding that Operation Guardian of the Walls will continue “as long as we think we can inflict more serious punishment on Hamas and degrade their capabilities.”

The end goal of the operation is to “degrade Hamas’s will to start this kind of thing again soon.”

Asked if US pressure for a ceasefire is a consideration in whether to continue, the official said it is, but that “Israel has to reach its own decisions on its own national security with all the different ingredients looked at as a whole.”

“As long as we think that Hamas still needs to receive a few blows, we still have goals, we will continue,” the official said.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said on Tuesday that US President Joe Biden’s objective is “to see an end to the violence on the ground and to the suffering of the Israeli and the Palestinian people.”

“As I’ve noted in the past, our focus and our strategy here is to work through quiet, intensive diplomacy,” she said on a press gaggle aboard Air Force One. “He’s been doing this long enough to know that the best way to end an international conflict is typically not to debate it in public…We see it as an ongoing behind the scenes discussion with our partners in Israel, with the Palestinian leader, with leaders in the region about how we can bring an end to the conflict.”

At the same time, Psaki said, “we also fully recognize it is up to the parties involved to bring an end to the conflict. And our objective is to every statement we make, every action we take, everything we sign onto is going to have that objective in mind.”

“We continue to believe that Israel has the right to defend itself,” Psaki added. “There’ve been more than 3000 rocket attacks from Hamas, and more overnight into Israel. Civilians have lost their lives. Palestinian civilians have also lost their lives. And our goal is to get to the end of this conflict. We’re going to evaluate day by day with the right approaches.”

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke with UAE Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed, Bahraini Foreign Minister Abdulatif al-Zayani and Moroccan Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita  – countries that normalized ties with Israel last year – on Monday and Tuesday, as part of American “outreach to halt the conflict in Israel and the West Bank and Gaza” and “to prevent further loss of life,” Blinken tweeted.

The EU held its Foreign Affairs Council meeting via teleconference on Tuesday, with serious divisions over what to include in its statements, which led to the meeting to end without a formal conclusion.

The EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs Josep Borrell said Hungary was the only country to oppose an FAC statement, which can only be made by consensus.

The statement would have said that the “priority is the immediate cessation of all violence and the implementation of a ceasefire,” Borrell said. “The priority is to protect civilians and give full humanitarian access to Gaza.”

Borrell added that most EU countries say the “high number of civilian casualties…high number of children and women – this is unacceptable.”

In addition, Borrell said: “We condemn the rocket attacks by Hamas and other terrorist groups on Israeli territory. We fully support Israel’s right to [self] defense, but we have also considered and stated it has to be done in a proportionate matter, respecting international humanitarian law.”

He also said that after a ceasefire, there must be a relaunch of engagement aiming at a two-state solution, saying “only a true political solution can bring peace.”

“The status quo is not an option, because violence will come again,” Borrell asserted.

The EU is Israel’s biggest trade partner and a big aid donor to the Palestinians. Some member states – led by Luxembourg, along with Belgium, Ireland, Malta, Finland and others – have called to do more to promote Palestinian statehood, including threatening economic sanctions on Israel.

Other countries, including Germany, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Austria, Greece, Cyprus and Poland, have defended Israel’s interests. Austria flew an Israeli flag over the federal chancellery in Vienna on Friday.

Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias landed in Israel on Tuesday, meeting with Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi, as well as Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem Theophilos III and Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh.

Dendias said only that he discussed “developments in the region” with Ashkenazi and Shtayyeh, separately.

Ashkenazi said the visit reflected close ties and solidarity between the countries, and thanked Dendias for condemning Hamas rocket fire on Israel and supporting Israel’s right to defend itself.

Gantz spoke with his German counterpart Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, known as AKK, and thanked her for Germany’s solidarity with Israel, condemnation of rocket attacks on Israel and support for Israel’s right to defend itself.

Foreign ministers of BRICS countries – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – held a teleconference on Monday night to discuss issues in the Middle East, including the fighting between Israel and Gaza.

“They called on both sides for an immediate end to the violence and strict observance of the norms of international human law,” a statement from the Russian Foreign Ministry reads. “We emphasized the importance of an early restart of direct Palestinian-Israeli negotiations with the aim of a comprehensive and long-term solution of all issues of the final status on the basis of a two-state solution.”

Reuters contributed to this report.