The judge cannot be released from his personal responsibility for a totally wrong and vicious description of what really happened in Gaza. His vague statement is a poor attempt to cleanse his conscience.

Recent events in Gaza, where dozens of long-range missiles have been launched at our cities, hit innocent civilians and prevented our citizens from continuing with their routine activities, cannot be tolerated. The State of Israel cannot but take the necessary measures in order to bring this to an immediate end.

The Palestinian terror organizations’ pattern of behavior is a repetition of what happened toward the end of December 2008, when they launched a comprehensive attack, of over 60 missiles daily, on the Israeli civilian population in the southern part of the country.

As the prime minister of Israel, I had no choice but to take decisive action against the terror organizations in Gaza in order to put an end to the attacks against our civilians. This was an inevitable manifestation of the responsibility of my government. I am sure that the current government faces the same dilemma and will reach a similar conclusion.