Itongadol.- "Violence is not the result of building in Jerusalem. It is the result of our enemy\’s desire that we not be here at all. For this reason, since the birth of Zionism, building has been the natural and decisive answer to those who plot against our existence and want to uproot us from our land."
"The last time I stood here was before Operation Protective Edge. During that operation to defend against criminal terrorist attacks, the State of Israel showed the entire world what decisiveness, force and unity are. These values found supreme expression among the people and the army and above all in our soldiers who were injured, our soldiers who fell and their families.
I know that I speak on behalf of the Knesset and the entire nation when I stand with you in your heavy grief, my brothers and sisters in the family of the bereaved. I know that I speak on behalf of us all when I send our wishes for a full and speedy recovery to our injured soldiers. I visited them in the hospitals, like many of you did, and I was deeply moved by their courage and their desire to return quickly to their friends on the battlefield.
During this fight, during Operation Protective Edge, our soldiers stopped a multi-pronged attack that had been planned by Hamas over many years. This attack was intended to inflict mass casualties on the citizens of Israel, to kidnap our soldiers and to hold our citizens hostage. Hamas launched thousands of rockets at Israeli cities and tried to attack us through raids on land, at sea, in the air and underground. We stopped the vast majority of them. We intercepted the rockets; we destroyed dozens of tunnels; we killed hundreds of terrorists; we toppled terror towers; and we killed many of the terrorist commanders. We dealt Hamas the heaviest blow it has ever been dealt and we conveyed a very clear message: whoever tries to harm our cities and citizens will pay a heavy price.
I would like to thank again the soldiers and commanders of the Israel Defense Forces, as well as the members of the Israeli Security Agency and the other branches of the defense establishment. Thank you, soldiers of the IDF, for your heroism and courage. We are proud of you. You defended the country in a military campaign and the country will defend you in the legal and public diplomacy systems. As I did recently in the United Nations, we will expose the lies and deceitful libels directed at the IDF, the most moral army in the world, which in Operation Protective Edge fought the most just war. Israel will continue to stand tall, secure in the justness of its path, proud of its people and its army."
