Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he is “prepared to do a lot more” after overnight Israeli strikes hit Hamas targets in Gaza, but by sunset on Tuesday an uneasy calm seemed to be holding, following the sharpest escalation in violence since the beginning of the year.
The militant Hamas group — which Israel blamed for triggering the latest round of hostilities by firing a rocket that hit a house north of Tel Aviv in the early hours of Monday morning — first announced that a ceasefire had been agreed late Monday, but renewed rocket fire from Gaza into Israel, and Israeli airstrikes, continued into the early hours of Tuesday morning.
Netanyahu addressed a meeting of the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), a pro-Israel lobbying group, in Washington, DC via remote link from Israel. The Prime Minister said his country had “responded with great force, on a scale not seen since [the war between Israel and Hamas in] 2014” in response to the rocket.
