Military operation ‘will take a long time’ – Israel

West Jerusalem has accused Hamas of being a “proxy of Iran” 

Israel will “never forgive” this weekend’s attack by Hamas and will take “a long time” to deal with the terrorist threat, Foreign Minister Eli Cohen said on Monday.

“It will take time. It will not take a few days. It will take a long time,” Cohen said during a video-link press conference from his office in Jerusalem, adding that such “inhuman terrorists” and “monsters” cannot be allowed to threaten Israel, the region and the world.

Cohen called Hamas “the proxy of Iran” and accused the militant Palestinian group of carrying out “a historical massacre that the world will not forget.” 

According to Israeli authorities, more than 700 of their citizens have been killed since Saturday, when Hamas launched a rocket barrage against Israel and its militants crossed from Gaza into the surrounding Jewish settlements.

“Israel will never forgive,” Cohen insisted. “What was in the past will not be in the future.”

Cohen also echoed the words of PM Benjamin Netanyahu that “Israel is at war” against Hamas, which he called a “vicious terror organization,” and vowed that Israel will “regain control, and win back security and stability.”

READ MORE: Violent Israel-Palestine escalation: Live updates

The foreign minister claimed that Hamas only wants to “murder as much as they can” and that there was no land dispute between Israel and Gaza, because “we gave the Palestinians Gaza to the last millimeter.”

As part of the 2005 “disengagement,” Israel paid some 8,000 Jewish settlers to dismantle 21 of their settlements in the Gaza Strip, which was then handed over to the Palestinian Authority. Israel remained in control of the sea, airspace, and all the utilities. In 2007, Hamas ousted the Fatah faction of the Palestinian Authority in Gaza and became the de facto government in the territory. The UN still considers Gaza to be under Israeli military occupation.