Mark Regev

The most important issue is to prevent Hamas from rearming and prevent Hamas from getting more rockets, from digging more tunnels because we don't want just to revisit this conflict in six months or in a year.

The operation against the tunnels is winding up anyway. We've destroyed -- located and destroyed those terra tunnels that allowed Hamas to send into Israel death squads to kill our people.

Hamas not only killed Israelis. Hamas not only torpedoed negotiated U.N. supported cease-fire, humanitarian cease-fire, but they also destroyed the chances of bringing immediate and concrete relief to the people of Gaza.

It's clear, though, the focus up until now was on the military track and the diplomatic track and seeing how those tracks complement each other, as Hamas has shut the door now to the diplomatic track.

There are talks going on in parallel to the military operation against terrorists targeting Gaza. The phones have been ringing and conversations are happening. And if it's possible to find a diplomatic solution that will be a good thing…

And thirdly, and this is the most important element that we want to make sure that Hamas cannot rearm because that's what happened after the previous rounds.

We had a chance yesterday to de-escalate. We tried that very seriously. Unfortunately, Hamas was not interested and just increase its attacks upon us.

Not the scope. The goal remains the same to stop those rockets coming in on Israeli cities and to prevent Hamas terrorists from infiltrating across the border through those tunnels trying to kill our people.

We had a chance yesterday to deescalate. We tried that very seriously. Unfortunately, Hamas was not interested in just increasing attacks upon us and today, we're responding in time, in kind.

The goal remains the same, to stop those rockets coming in on Israeli cities and to prevent Hamas terrorists from infiltrating across the border through those tunnels, trying to kill our people.

You can't have a situation where terrorists in Gaza can infiltrate your country, pop up on our side of the frontier with weapons, with explosions, and kidnap people or murder people.

In other words, I think demilitarization of Gaza has to be part of the end game agenda.