Possible Ceasefire Between Israel and Palestinian?

BIANNA GOLODRYGA: We are hearing conflicting reports that a cease-fire is imminent, despite those words that we heard from your defense minister. Can you give us the latest on when we can expect a cease-fire?

LT. COL. JONATHAN CONRICUS, INTERNATIONAL SPOKESPERSON, ISRAEL DEFENSE FORCES: Thank you, Bianna, for having me. The latest today is about 300 rockets fired at Israeli civilians. That’s the latest from my perspective. And, as long as there’s rocket fire from Gaza at our civilians, then surely you cannot expect any talk of cease- fire. But I will leave that to the Security Cabinet. From a military perspective, we are ongoing — operations are ongoing, planning is ongoing, and no indications of anything else.

GOLODRYGA: We just heard your ambassador to the United Nations address the General Assembly, also saying that he would like a cease-fire, that Israel would like a cease-fire as well, but said that Israel is looking for a cure and not a Band-Aid. So, what does a cure look like?

CONRICUS: Well, the cure would be a solution that puts significant limitations on Hamas’ abilities to continue to produce weapons and to continue to hold the Palestinians living in Gaza as hostage for their extremist ideas. That would be a good step forward. And what we have been busy doing over the last 12 days of fighting has been degrading the military capabilities of Hamas, focusing on their ability to produce rockets, and also on taking away from them perhaps the most important part of the infrastructure, the underground infrastructure that they have spent many years building underneath the city of Gaza, essentially creating a city beneath a city. That is what has allowed them to fight, to replenish their rockets, and to stay away from the aerial power — airpower of Israel. And that’s now being degraded. And if time allows, we will continue to degrade that.

GOLODRYGA: And in terms of time allowing, United States President Joe Biden is reported to be impatient with Prime Minister Netanyahu in terms of things quieting down and seeing a cease-fire. When you’re talking about time allowed, what is the window there, given the pressure that Israel is getting from its closest ally, the United States?

CONRICUS: Yes, of course, the ties with the with the U.S. are the most important international ally we have, and the communication on the elected level are extremely important. What I can tell you, from reality on the ground, from a military perspective, today, we thwarted several attacks against our civilians. We thwarted several attempts to fire rockets and to fire anti-tank missiles at our troops and at Israeli civilians. So, on the military level, really, the focus is on continued defense