Netanyahu: Hamas expected Tel Aviv to be in ruins

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Hamas has been very surprised by the ferocity of Israel’s campaign, and by the success of the Iron Dome in thwarting its rockets.

“Tel Aviv was supposed to be in ruins. It’s not in ruins,” he says.

The prime minister says that Hamas is being hit very hard, but is still there, underground.

“There are stages [in the operation against Hamas]. They [the Hamas leaders] don’t go down into bomb shelters. They live in bomb shelters, deriding the [exposed] Gaza residents,” he says. “This is a multi-staged operation. The problem will be solved, militarily or diplomatically, or through a combination of both, over time. We’re learning lots of lessons.”

During a Q&A session with reporters following remarks on Operation Protective Edge, Netanyahu recalls his prediction before the 2005 disengagement, that, if we leave Gaza, “we’ll get missiles on Ashdod.” He recalled saying “that if we leave that territory, Iran-backed Hamastan would emerge, and that’s what happened.

“Now we’re trying, as best we can, to reverse this truth: You evacuate territory in the Middle East, you get Islamist forces of one kind or another… That’s the truth,” he says.