Netanyahu: Israel won’t tolerate violations of its borders
In apparent reference to recent IS rocket attacks from Egypt, PM says ‘anyone who attacks us — we will attack him’
Visiting Eilat on Tuesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed that Israel will not tolerate any cross border violence. He was speaking in an apparent reference to a salvo of rockets fired at the southern resort city recently.
“We won’t allow anyone to disturb the quiet” on our borders, the prime minister said, promising that any attempt to harm Israel will be met with a firm response.
“Anyone who attacks us — we will attack him, there are no drizzles for free,” he said, referring to the intermittent firing of rockets at Israel.
“Even when we have a peaceful border, we are concerned with security,” he added.
Although Netanyahu did not address any specific threats on Israel’s borders, he appeared to be referring to Egypt, from where the Islamic State’s local branch in the Sinai Peninsula has fired a number of rockets at southern Israel over the course of the last month, including towards Eilat.
Israel and Egypt have a longstanding peace agreement and are reported to cooperate closely on security matters in the Sinai Peninsula.
Despite focusing the vast majority of its efforts on waging a bloody insurgency against the Egyptian Army in recent years, the Sinai Province, as IS’ Egyptian affiliate has known, has recently also targeted Israel in what appears to be part of the group’s propaganda efforts.
Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman told Army Radio last month that despite the sporadic rocket fire by IS at Israel, he does not consider the terror group to be “a serious threat.”
Liberman said that while IS in Sinai is “annoying” and “hindersome,” it does not possess the means to pose a serious threat to Israel’s security.
“If you are talking about Hamas and Hezbollah then [IS’s Sinai force] is not even a terror group,” he said, describing the group’s capabilities as “random [amateurs] who decide to build themselves an army.”
“We need to see everything in proportion,” he added.
Liberman’s comments followed the firing of two rockets by the Sinai Province that struck an open field in southern Israel, which came shortly after the group accused the Jewish state of killing five of its operatives in an airstrike in the Sinai Peninsula.
