Israel sends out strong warning to Hamas terrorists: “Patience is running out”

Israel on Sunday warned the Palestinian terror group Hamas that its patience “is running out” and that it will not tolerate “more violence” of any kind, a month after the latest military escalation between the parties ended.

“The inhabitants of the communities bordering Gaza are not second-class citizens, they deserve to live in peace and security”, underlined the new Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett on the towns which have suffered rocket fire in the midst of escalation by Hamas, an extremist movement which retains control of the Palestinian enclave.

“Our enemies must understand the rules, we will not tolerate violence, we will not tolerate sporadic gunfire and we will not tolerate renegades.”Bennett said at a ceremony on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem in remembrance of Israeli soldiers who fell in the 2014 war with Gaza, the first official act in which he has participated since taking the oath of office as Prime Minister on June 13.

The head of government promised that he would do everything possible to recover the bodies of Israeli soldiers. Oron shaul Yes Hadar goldin, who died in the 2014 campaign, as well as the return of Israeli captives to their homes Avera mengistu e Hisham al-Saeed, detained in the Strip since then, one of the conditions that Israel imposes on Hamas to advance the talks to consolidate the truce reached on May 21, which stopped the last conflagration.

This new escalation of eleven days of war between Israeli troops and Palestinian militias in Gaza, the worst since the 2014 war, left 255 dead in the enclave and 13 in Israel, and revealed that relations between Palestinians and Israelis in Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank are increasingly tense.

Bennett also addressed the two million Gazans living in the Strip and assured that it has “no intention of harming those who did not rise up against us violently and who are being held captive by a violent and ruthless terrorist organization.”

Bennett’s remarks come just days after Israel carried out targeted airstrikes on Hamas military targets in the wee hours of May 16-17, in response to three days of incendiary balloons launched from the Gaza Strip at on Israeli soil, causing dozens of minor fires.

Bennett, a former settler leader and religious ultranationalist who once championed the annexation of the Palestinian territories, has moderate his speech since taking office on the 13th by calling for national unity and the peaceful coexistence of Arabs and Jews in the vanguard of the “Government of Change”, whose leadership will cede after two years to its coalition partner, the secular centrist Yair Lapid, in favor of the resumption of the peace process.

Israel’s operation focused very specifically on the military installations of the al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of the Islamist movement that has de facto ruled Gaza since 2007, without causing any casualties, as confirmed by both the IDF and Hamas security sources.

“We are ready for any scenario, including the resumption of hostilities if terrorist activities continue in the Gaza StripThe army said in a statement.

Palestinian activists and Hamas supporters demonstrated in several towns in the Strip and threw incendiary balloons towards the border with Israel, causing around 20 minor fires, in protest against the celebration of “Parade of flagsAn ultra-nationalist Israeli march through Jerusalem, which crossed the occupied eastern zone and during which cries of “Death to the Arab” were heard.

This new episode of tension represents a challenge for the new Bennett government.

Israeli security forces arrested senior Hamas terrorist official in early June in Ramallah.

the sheikh Jamal Al Tawil, a senior Hamas official in Judea and Samaria, was arrested in Ramallah after a joint intelligence and operations activity of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) “Duvdevan” unit and the Israel Security Agency.

With information from the EFE

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