Israeli Justice Minister Tzipi Livni said the world must respond to jihadists in Gaza and Iraq.
Livni made the statement in a Facebook post on Friday morning. Her post came as Israeli jets struck Hamas targets in Gaza in response to rocket fire and hours after President Barack Obama announced he had authorized limited airstrikes in Iraq against the jihadist group known as the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL.
“There will be no new, ISIL Middle East,” Livni wrote on Facebook. “Those who woke up this morning in our rough neighborhood know the world needs a clear and loud compass on what is coming out of Gaza and what is happening in Syria and Iraq. Radical forces, fanatics and terrorists need to be treated, and not psychologically, because there is no justification for terrorism against civilians.”
In an address Thursday, Obama announced the first significant battlefield role in Iraq by the United States since the last American soldier left Iraq in 2011. Obama said he had ordered “targeted strikes against ISIL terrorist convoys should they move toward the city” of Irbil.
The United States was also “providing urgent assistance to Iraqi government and Kurdish forces so they can more effectively wage the fight against ISIL,” Obama said.
Obama added, “American combat troops will not be returning to fight in Iraq, because there’s no American military solution to the larger crisis in Iraq.”
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