'Hamas will pay a heavy price,' says Foreign Minister Eli Cohen

Israel’s Foreign Ministry held the first open briefing for the international press since Operation Iron Swords broke out between Israel and Hamas on Saturday. The country’s foreign minister, Eli Cohen, addressed the journalists and said that Israel is fighting a war it did not choose to fight. “Israel is at war, and we did not choose to start this war. We are facing a vicious terror organization, Hamas.”

After visiting the affected southern communities Monday morning, Cohen spoke of the disaster found by the Israel Defense Forces once they managed to regain the territory conquered by Hamas terrorists.

According to Cohen, among the situations that the Israeli army encountered was the discovery of two 10-month-old twins who had been lying beside the dead bodies of their parents for more than a full day. Their parents had been murdered by Hamas gunmen who broke into their home in the Israeli town of Kfar Aza Saturday morning.

Cohen also mentioned the kidnapping of an 85-year-old wheelchair-bound Holocaust survivor who was taken into Gaza as a hostage. Stressing that such atrocities are pure evil, he compared them to ISIS and the Nazis. “It is viciousness and evilness that I think the world has rarely seen. The only times that we saw this is with the Nazis and maybe ISIS,” he said.

Cohen recalled stories from the terror attack on a 3,000-person music festival. Dozens of terrorists killed 270 young Israeli partygoers, and many more went missing. He described a group of 20 Israelis who had managed to hide from the gunmen in a trash bin only later to be discovered. Ultimately, a grenade had been thrown inside the bin, killing all in one fell swoop.

“Hamas is the proxy of Iran. Hamas executed a historical massacre that the world will not forget,” added Cohen.

Currently, Israel’s main concerns, said Cohen, are to seal its borders, ensure that there are no more terrorists in the country, and find those who are dead or still wounded.

IDF spokesperson Maj. Libby Weiss, who also spoke at the press conference, reiterated the Israeli government’s three main goals to achieve during this war: rid Israeli territory of all terrorists, bring back the hostages being held in Gaza, and “eliminate Hamas’ military capability once and for all,” she said.

She called Saturday’s assault “the worst massacre of Israeli civilians in Israel’s history.”

Weiss pointed out that resolving all that has happened is going to be a “long process” and suggested that this war will probably last longer than expected.

Cohen stressed that Israel left Gaza 18 years ago and has no interest in reentering the territory. “We gave Gaza to the Palestinians up to the last millimeter, and there is no dispute in regard to the land.” Despite that, he added, Israel provides electricity and water to Gaza while trying to create jobs for its citizens in Israel so that they can earn their daily bread.

He continued by saying that Hamas attacked the Erez Crossing in northern Gaza, the same crossing that Palestinians use daily to enter Israel to work, suggesting that they destroyed a site that serves their own people.

“Israel will not be the same after this; Israel will not forgive,” Cohen stated.

Hamas war crimes

He condemned Hamas for using the billions of dollars given to them by the international community to build terror infrastructure and tunnels and supply themselves with rockets instead of using the funds to improve the lives of the 2 million citizens that live in Gaza.

In the name of the Israeli government, Cohen demanded that Hamas not kill any of the hostages in their hands, warning that the organization would pay a heavy price.

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Lior Hayat noted that in the next few days, the Israeli government will be able to reveal the number of hostages and their identities and nationalities, adding that many of them have dual citizenships.

When asked about tribunals, Hayat said that these are war crimes committed by Hamas. He further stressed that the terror organization is committing a dual crime of war under international law by attacking Israeli civilians and using their own Palestinian civilians as human shields when Israel retaliates.

Prior to the war, over 100,000 rockets had already entered Israel. According to Hayat, this represents 200,000 war crimes: 100,000 against Israeli civilians, and another 100,000 for the human shields that Hamas uses.

Hayat added that the Israeli government is highly disappointed, a term considered to be the “understatement of the year,” with the Palestinian Authority’s lack of response to condemn Hamas’ brutal attacks.