We haven’t even started yet, said former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in an exclusive interview with CNN-News18 on Friday, in the thick of fierce fighting between his country’s forces and Palestinian militant group Hamas.
“What exactly needs to be done is too early to say," said Olmert. “Only aerial attacks for the time being against the headquarters of the Hamas organisations in different parts of Gaza, but the ground operation has not started yet…We need to make sure we do the right thing against the right target and avoid collateral damage."
Nothing would prevent Israeli forces, Olmert said, “from reaching out for leaders of the Palestinian terrorist organisations".
Hamas is like ISIS, Taliban, and al-Qaeda, the former Israeli PM said. “This is the DNA of Hamas…Killing innocent people and torturing them is the nature of this organisation," he told CNN-News18. “As prime minister, I fought Hamas in a very aggressive manner."
The Palestinians, unfortunately, are divided, Olmert said. “It’s incumbent upon us just as much as it is on them to try and reach out in order to establish a different framework of relations that leads towards peace, he said. “In Gaza, we have to fight with Hamas. Because this is a terrorist organisation."
The enemy doesn’t want peace and compromise with Israel, said Olmert. “They don’t have any specific legitimate demand that can be responded to," he added.
The purpose of the Islamist organisations Hezbollah and Hamas and the strategy of Iran are not completely clear, he said.
Iran is trying to upset the balance in the Middle East, Olmert alleged.
“The reactions that I get from different parts of the Middle East…kill them, destroy them, stop them, fight against them…so there is a popular response in many of these countries," he said. “They are moderates…They never had any direct confrontation with the state of Israel."
One of the reasons why Hamas is doing what it is doing now, Olmert said, is because it is afraid of the new alliance between the United States and Saudi Arabia and the normalisation of ties between Saudi Arabia and Israel.