News Brief

(IsraelNN.com) The Foreign Ministry took 70 foreign ambassadors and diplomats to the area near Gaza Wednesday morning to show them first-hand the problem Negev residents face with terrorist rocket attacks. Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni took the diplomats to the Sha'ar HaNegev campus, which has come under attack by Kassam rockets.

"Israel took the decision to withdraw from the Gaza Strip," the envoys were told. "We offered the Palestinians hope, and the situation prevailing in the region is one of terror.... We are continuing negotiations with the moderates in the Palestinian Authority, but we need to be realistic. The negotiations themselves will not solve the problems created by Gaza, certainly not in a short period of time. We will not permit the establishment of a terrorist state; we cannot accept an extremist Islamic state on Israel's border, and we cannot afford a weak, failed state."

IDF officers showed the visitors evidence of the exploitation of international institutions for the firing of Kassams by the terror organizations and reviewed the scope of humanitarian aid currently being supplied to Gaza.