MK Danny Danon (Likud) blasted the United States and President Barack Obama on Sunday night, after Obama demanded that Israel agree to an unconditional ceasefire in Gaza.
"We need a break from the fire that is coming from the Obama administration in Washington,” he said, adding, “Just as the United States fought resolutely against the Taliban, so must we continue to strike Hamas and destroy its tunnel infrastructure."
"We need to withstand the pressure being exerted upon us and worry about Israel's interests,” said Danon.
MK Orit Struk (Jewish Home) also criticized Washington for its demand that Israel agree to a ceasefire with no conditions.
“Not only tunnels and shafts are being exposed during Operation Protective Edge. The real faces of those who are supposed to be our friends are exposed as well," she said.
"When President Obama and his foreign minister Kerry take the side of the Islamic axis of evil time after time, they completely lose their status as ‘honest brokers’ in the conflict,” added Struk.
In a conversation with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Sunday, Obama stressed the need for an immediate and sustainable ceasefire in Gaza.
According to a statement from the White House, Obama “ “made clear the strategic imperative of instituting an immediate, unconditional humanitarian ceasefire that ends hostilities now and leads to a permanent cessation of hostilities based on the November 2012 ceasefire agreement.”
The conversation between Obama and Netanyahu came several hours after Netanyahu made clear that Israel had rejected Hamas's request for a 24-hour truce.
The Prime Minister gave a series of interviews to Sunday news shows on U.S. channels – Fox News, NBC, CBS and CNN – in which he said, “Hamas has violated five ceasefires and humanitarian lulls that Israel has accepted, two of them in the last 24 hours, and now Hamas is violating the ceasefire that it itself offered and continues to fire at Israel.
"We will do all that is necessary to protect the security interests of the citizens of Israel,” he stated. “The IDF will continue to operate to neutralize the terror tunnels. Hamas is responsible for the deaths of civilians, which it uses as human shields.”
Earlier Sunday, Israel resumed its ground and air offensive against Hamas terrorism in Gaza, after the terror group fired a salvo of rockets on Israeli civilians during a "humanitarian ceasefire."
Over the weekend, Israel rejected Secretary of State John Kerry’s proposal for a ceasefire.