President Barack Obama reaffirmed his administration’s support of Israel during a press conference held on his diplomatic tour of Thailand and Burma Sunday morning.
Obama said Israel was justified in defending itself following Palestinian missile attacks into populated areas.
“There’s no country on earth that would tolerate missiles raining down on it’s citizens from outside its borders,” Obama said. “So we are fully supportive of Israel’s right to defend itself from missiles landing on people’s homes and workplaces and potentially killing civilians.”
Israel entered its fifth-day of bombing the Gaza Strip over the weekend in response to Palestinian militia shooting rockets into Israel. The strike against Gaza has already killed more than 50 people, many of them civilians, including 11 who were killed when a rocket hit an apartment building Sunday afternoon, the New York Times reported.
The president said that he’d spoken with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to bring a quick resolution to the current fighting.
The president emphasized that the conflict would make finding a two-state solution in the region and creating a “genuine peace process” more difficult.
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