The latest the developments in Syria have led to Russia’s Foreign Ministry to break its silence on the developments on Israel’s southern frontier with the Gaza Strip, stressing in a statement that “the IDF’s use of force against Palestinians at protests inside the Gaza Strip was unacceptable.” In a statement, the Russian Foreign Ministry criticized what it described as Israel’s “indiscriminate use of force against the civilian population.” The statement refers to the latest Palestinian demonstrations along the enclave’s border with Israel, which began on the 30th of March, and have been dubbed as “The Great March of Return” of Palestinian refugees and their descendants to lands they claim to have owned across Israel before the establishment of the Jewish state. In response to the international condemnations and rhetoric against the security measures Israel applies to thwart an attempted breach of its territory; Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that Jerusalem has one clear and simple rule: whomever tries to attack us, will be attacked. Netanyahu said, “We have one clear and simple rule and we seek to express it constantly: If someone tries to attack you – rise up and attack him. We will not allow, here on the Gaza border, them to hurt us. We will hurt them,” the Israeli Prime Minister said during a ‘rooftop signing’ in the southern Israeli city of Sderot.
Meanwhile, Israel’s Former Defense Minister Ehud Barak criticized Prime Minister Netanyahu and the security cabinet, warning them that the Israeli home front was not prepared for war. Barak, who also served as Israel’s Prime Minister from 1999 to 2001 and the IDF Chief of Staff in the early 90’s, warned that “The military echelon is doing what it can, with the means at its disposal, but the political echelon in the State of Israel, mainly the prime minister, is not meeting its obligation to take whatever action necessary to ensure the home front’s readiness for the possibility of all-out war.” Barak, who is also the joint most highly decorated soldier in Israel’s history, noted that while “The Iranians might find another arena in which to respond,” to Israel’s activities against its regional expansion, “it is clear that in the long term, they won’t stop their activities.”