By Michelle Nichols
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations on Sunday accused Palestinian Islamist group Hamas of committing war crimes, vowing that it was time to “obliterate” Hamas terror infrastructure while seeking to keep normalization talks with Saudi Arabia on track.
In a dramatic assault launched from the Palestinian enclave of Gaza on Saturday, Hamas militants stormed into Israeli towns, killing more than 600 Israelis and escaping with dozens of hostages, in the deadliest day for Israel since the 1973 war.
“These are war crimes, blatant documented war crimes,” Israel’s U.N. Ambassador Gilad Erdan told reporters.
“The era of reasoning with these savages is over,” he said. “Now is the time to obliterate Hamas terror infrastructure, to completely erase it, so that such horrors are never committed again.”
Israel pounded Gaza on Sunday, killing hundreds of people in retaliation.
Erdan spoke ahead of a closed-door U.N. Security Council meeting later on Sunday, appealing for the international community to give Israel its full support and condemn the actions of Hamas.
The assault by Hamas coincides with U.S.-backed moves to push Saudi Arabia towards normalizing ties with Israel in return for a defence deal between Washington and Riyadh.
“We don’t see any reason that should be off the table,” said Erdan. “We still want it to happen. We’ll do everything that we can to live in co-existence with all of our neighbors.”
(Reporting by Michelle Nichols; writing by Susan Heavey; Editing by Lisa Shumaker and Diane Craft)
