{"id":3711,"date":"2012-11-15T17:56:44","date_gmt":"2012-11-15T23:56:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/?p=3711"},"modified":"2012-11-16T09:32:25","modified_gmt":"2012-11-16T15:32:25","slug":"president-obama-voices-support-for-israels-self-defense","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/president-obama-voices-support-for-israels-self-defense\/","title":{"rendered":"President Obama voices support for Israel&#8217;s &#8216;self-defense&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>WASHINGTON (JTA) &#8212; President Obama in calls to Israeli and Egyptian leaders backed Israel&#8217;s right to self-defense as Israel&#8217;s counterattacks on the Gaza Strip intensified. &#8220;The President reiterated to Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu the United States\u2019 support for Israel\u2019s right to self-defense in light of the barrage of rocket attacks being launched from Gaza against Israeli civilians,&#8221; said a statement from the White House Wednesday night.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The President urged Prime Minister Netanyahu to make every effort to avoid civilian casualties,&#8221; the statement said. &#8220;The two agreed that Hamas needs to stop its attacks on Israel to allow the situation to de-escalate. The two leaders agreed to stay in close touch in the coming days.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The statement reported a similar conversation between Obama and Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi, who has condemned Israel&#8217;s counterattack as &#8220;wanton aggression&#8221; and summoned home the Egyptian ambassador from Israel.<\/p>\n<p>Morsi&#8217;s Muslim Brotherhood movement has close ties to Hamas, the terrorist group that controls the Gaza Strip.<\/p>\n<p>Hamas officials say the Israeli airstrikes on Wednesday killed eight, including an infant and a 7-year-old girl. As of Thursday, 15 Palestinians have been killed and more than 100 injured, according to the Palestinian Maan news agency.<\/p>\n<p>The Israeli operation began Wednesday with the assassination of Ahmed Jabari, the head of Hamas&#8217; military wing, when a missile fired by the Israeli military struck the car in which he was driving.<\/p>\n<p>The strikes came after four days of intensified rocket fire from Gaza, with at least 150 rockets landing inside Israel.<\/p>\n<p>Rocket fire has continued since Israeli launched its strikes Wednesday afternoon, and Israel has moved infantry units to the South and called up reservists.<\/p>\n<p>The U.N. Security Council heard presentations late Wednesday from the Israeli and Palestinian representatives in a closed emergency session on the outbreak.<\/p>\n<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_toolbar\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" data-src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" class=\"lazyload\" \/><noscript><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\"\/><\/noscript><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services_t=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Google Plus\",\"Pinterest\",\"Linkedin\",\"Tumblr\",\"Email\");var hupso_background_t=\"#EAF4FF\";var hupso_border_t=\"#66CCFF\";var hupso_toolbar_size_t=\"medium\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_url_t=\"\";var hupso_title_t=\"President%20Obama%20voices%20support%20for%20Israel%27s%20%27self-defense%27\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share_toolbar.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,25],"tags":[137,663,40,8781,8790,8795,1228,8788,312,674],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3711"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3711"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3711\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3727,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3711\/revisions\/3727"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}