Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened to continue targeting Palestinian Islamic Jihad on Wednesday as the terrorist group announced that it was far from ready to engage in ceasefire talks.
“We are not talking of mediation, it’s not appropriate to talk about it,” A spokesperson for Palestinian Islamic Jihad said. “When we complete our response that we want to send, it will be possible to talk about calming things down.”
Over 220 rockets have been fired at Israel by PIJ militants in the Gaza Strip in response to Israel’s targeted killing of Islamic Jihad leader, Bahaa Abu al-Ata. Earlier in the day, there were reports in the Arab press 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.
During an address at the Knesset, Netanyahu argued with Arab MKs from the Joint List, who accused him of war crimes.
“We will not tolerate attacks on our citizens,” Netanyahu said. “In the last year, we accumulated a mass of these attacks.”
Al-Ata “was ready to carry out more and more terrorists attacks, including in these days. We thwarted him when we were not heading for an escalation, but we will do all that we need to defend our citizens,” the prime minister added.
Defense Minister Naftali Bennett on Wednesday said that any terrorist who plans to attack Israel during the day will not survive the night.
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