Liberman on Gaza: We've exhausted all options; time for the army to go in




The Times of Israel is liveblogging Monday’s events as they unfold.






Liberman on Gaza: We’ve exhausted all options; time for the army to go in

Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman says Israel has exhausted all diplomacy efforts to reach an agreement with Hamas to end months of violence along the border with the Gaza Strip and that the time has come for the cabinet to reach a decision regarding a military option.
Speaking at the start of a Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee meeting, Liberman asserts that “we have exhausted all of the options. At the moment it is time to make decisions.”
“My position is very clear. we need to give Hamas a strong blow and that is the only way to get the situation back as it was before and to lower the level of violence to zero, or to nearly zero, or to the level it was on March 29,” the day before the violent March of Return demonstrations started.
The defense minister says such a decision can only be made by the cabinet, and not just himself or the prime minister.




Putin spokesman: Russia ‘will never attack anyone first’

Russia would never strike first even if threatened with a nuclear attack, the Kremlin spokesman says, following President Vladimir Putin’s remarks that Russians would “go to heaven” as martyrs in case of a nuclear war.
“We will never attack anyone first,” spokesman Dmitry Peskov tells journalists. “We don’t feel that we have the right to inflict the first strike.”