British Prime Minister Theresa May informed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, that the U.K., together with France and Germany, remains committed to the nuclear agreement as long as Iran meets its obligations, believing it to be the best route to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. “Of course, as you know, along with France and Germany, UK continues to believe that’s the best route to preventing Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. As long… and we will remain committed to it, as long as Iran meets its obligations. But we do recognize that there are other issues that need to be addressed in relation to Iran, it’s destabilizing regional activity in countries like Syria and Yemen and also the proliferation of ballistic missiles,” British Prime Minister Theresa May said.
During the course of their meeting, the British leader told her Israeli counterpart of London’s concerns with regard to the loss of Palestinian lives along the Israeli-Gaza frontier. That said, she reaffirmed the UK’s full support for the right Israel has for self-defense against “extremist and terrorist elements.” “We have been concerned about the loss of Palestinian lives. We, as you know, the UK absolutely recognizes the right that Israel has for self-defense, its activities of extremists and terrorists. But with 100 Palestinian lives lost and a deteriorating situation in Gaza, I hope we can talk about how we can alleviate that situation, how we can kind of, ensure we can get that position where we’re able to find a way through to talk about a two-state solution,” May said.
Prime Minister Netanyahu, who’s visit to the United Kingdom concluded his broader trip to Europe, underscored Jerusalem’s position in which the fundamental goal of Hamas to destroy Israel was the route of the problem. As far as Gaza is concerned, I think the problems there are routed in the fundamental goal of Hamas to destroy Israel. We are not witnessing peaceful protests, (inaudible) to burning our fields these people are being paid for and pushed by Hamas to try to break into Israel’s defenses, kill as many Israelis as they can, and kidnap our soldiers. This is not a non-violent protest, quite the contrary. We are doing everything we can to both minimize casualties and at the same time, protect Israeli lives. I think we recognize it’s a new technique, it’s a tactic of terrorists to attack civilian targets and hide behind civilians or in this case, use civilians as human shields,” Netanyahu said.
With regard to the economic crises across the Palestinian enclave, Netanyahu accused both the Palestinian Authority and the Islamist Hamas organization for “choking Gaza financially.” “It is also true that the reason Gaza is an economic, humanitarian crisis is because one – Hamas diverts an enormous amount of resources, from civilian needs to terror tunnels and other weapons of war, and secondly the other part of Palestinian society, the Palestinian authority has cut back the money. A combination of choking Gaza financially from one Palestinian side, and diverting resources for terror on the other side has created an economic crisis,” Netanyahu said.