As tensions in the Middle East soar unabated, thousands of kilometers to the east the Israeli and Palestinian envoys to Japan were at loggerheads in back-to-back news conferences in Tokyo.
In the morning, Israeli ambassador to Tokyo Gilad Cohen vehemently condemned Hamas’ attack nearly a week ago and strongly reiterated his country’s intention to engage in a full-fledged war to eradicate the militant group.
“This is for us our 9/11. But I want to make one thing clear, we are going to win this war,” Cohen told reporters at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan, calling Hamas’ action “crimes against humanity” and a kind of brutality that “the modern world has never seen.”