Ya'alon: We'll fight as long as Negev threatened

IDF Chief of Staff Moshe Ya'alon, responding to Israeli public debate over attacks in which 11 IDF troops were killed in Gaza within 36 hours, said Thursday that the Gaza Strip was not Lebanon, and that the IDF would continue to operate in the Strip for as long as terrorism threatened the communities of the neighboring Negev.

"The Gaza Strip is not Lebanon, in a great number of senses, which I will not analyze here," Ya'alon said in remarks broadcast on Israel Radio while visiting IDF troops operating in the Rafah area near the Egyptian border.

"For as long as there is terrorism in Gaza, an infrastructure of terror, and arms of the sort that threaten the settlements in the area, like Sderot, Nahal Oz, Kissufim, we will need to continue to operate against the terror infrastructure in Gaza on every front,"

"Therefore, I think that the comparison between Lebanon and Gaza is simply incorrect."

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