Israel-Gaza conflict: ‘There is no magic fix here’

Forcing a premature ceasefire in the escalation of hostilities between Israel and Palestinian militants will only result in the situation going back to square one, the senior adviser to the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said.

Mark Regev told BBC World News: “We didn’t want this conflict but now that it is started it has to end with a sustained period of quiet and that can only be achieved by Israel taking out Hamas, their military structure, their command and control, their communications, their arsenals,

“Hamas has to come out of this understanding that it is simply not in their interest to shoot rockets into Israel,” he said.

Some 122 people have been killed in Gaza and eight have died in Israel since fighting began on Monday.