Hillary defends Israel on Gaza

Hillary Clinton on Monday repeatedly stressed that Israel was “provoked” by Hamas in the current conflict roiling the Middle East, offering among her strongest statements yet concerning the hostilities in Gaza, reports Washington-based news organisation POLITICO.
The former secretary of state and possible 2016 Democratic front-runner delivered those comments during a question-and-answer session at the Twitter headquarters in San Francisco. She weighed in on the conflict between Israel and Hamas militants in several interviews last week as well, criticizing the leadership of Hamas as Israel launched a ground invasion into Gaza in response to rockets Hamas was lobbing into the country.
“You mention, in particular, the difficulties we currently are seeing in the Middle East,” she said, in response to a question about how Hamas and the Israel Defense Forces use Twitter. “Because of the actions by Hamas, first to rain rockets onto Israel, Israel being provoked -- because I do think that was part of the Hamas calculation, to provoke Israel to respond, to defend itself, which any nation has to do if you are under attack like that, and then we see the unfortunate effects of any conflict with innocent people being caught in the crossfires.”