The Israeli ambassador to Spain, Rodica Radian-Gordon, has described as “dramatic” and “savage” the missile attacks by Hamas and Islamic Jihad “which have half of Israel under this threat.”. Israel, he said, “has not started” this escalation and even – he has assured – the Government had made decisions to “keep the situation under control” “in this delicate week”. But, faced with the massive launch of missiles, Israel “could not not react”, since “no government in any country can allow such a far-reaching attack against its civilian population”, the diplomatic representative continued..
The clashes between Palestinian militias, which have launched more than 1,000 rockets into Israeli soil since Monday night, and Israel, which has been bombarding the Gaza Strip intensively in recent hours, have left more than fifty dead.. At least 48 people died in Gaza, including 14 children and three women, according to the Strip's Ministry of Health; On the Israeli side, six people – including a 16-year-old girl – have lost their lives, reports Afp.
In a virtual press conference offered this afternoon to the Spanish media and attended by ELMUNDO.es, Radian-Gordon stressed that the massive launch of rockets by the Gaza militias “is trying to test the Cúpula defensive system de Hierro by saturation bombardment”. Remarking that, “in less than an hour, 650 Hamas missiles were launched towards Tel Aviv”, on Tuesday, he assured: “I don't even want to imagine what would have happened without Iron Dome. It would have been a catastrophe.”.
“We are almost in a war situation,” he warned. “The important thing now is to have a clear deterrent against Hamas,” although he has ruled out a larger-scale offensive: “This is not the time for a ground operation in Gaza”.
The ambassador has predicted that the Islamist group Hamas -which has controlled the Gaza Strip since 2007- has the capacity to maintain that rate in terms of massive missile launches for a few days.. “We are seeing a 'promo' of what can happen in a war in the not too distant future, taking into account the missiles that Hamas and Hezbollah have, more sophisticated, against Israel,” he declared..
“I wonder what Hamas wants and how far it wants to go. It was not a miscalculation: Tel Aviv and Jerusalem are very clear red lines,” he added.. Radian-Gordon frames what happened “in an internal struggle of Hamas with other possible Palestinian leaders, trying to position themselves as leaders in an equation that includes Jerusalem in their fight from Gaza”.
He assures that “all the objectives that the Israeli Army has had and has these days are military objectives of Hamas and Islamic Jihad”. And he adds: “Of these 1,000 missiles launched [by the Palestinian militias] in recent days, between 20 and 30% have fallen in part of Gaza. Among all the victims they mention there are also victims of those launches. It's sad because the civilian population [of Gaza] is a hostage [to his actions]”.
“That there are children killed is horrible, but I'm not sure they were from attacks by the Israeli air force, which has been very surgical in its military targets against Hamas.. The army has acted in a surgical manner with well-defined objectives. There is no intention to harm the population of Gaza,” he has insisted.
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