"You Can Either Conquer" Or Deter Them: Israeli PM On Gaza Attacks

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu linked the dramatic surge in violence to a decision by Palestinian Authority president Mahmud Abbas to cancel Palestinian elections that had been scheduled for this weekend.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday the bombing campaign on the Gaza Strip aims to deter Hamas but did not rule out a campaign to "conquer" the enclave's Islamist rulers. "There are only two ways that you can deal with them," he said about Hamas in a Tel Aviv briefing for a group of foreign ambassadors. "You can either conquer them, and that's always an open possibility, or you can deter them, and we are engaged right now in forceful deterrence, but I have to say we don't rule out anything." The hawkish premier insisted Israel "didn't seek" the escalation that began on May 10 when Hamas fired rockets towards Jerusalem after demanding that Israeli security personnel vacate the Al-Aqsa mosque compound, Islam's third holiest site.