Sdeort Mayor says willing to negotiate with Hamas on end to Qassam fire
'The most important thing is life and I'm ready to do everything for that,' Eli Moyal tells The Guardian, 'I'm ready to talk to the devil'
The mayor of Sderot said he would be willing to holds talks with Hamas in an effort to end the incessant Qassam attacks on the Western Negev.
In an interview with The Guardian, published on Saturday, Eli Moyal said "I would say to Hamas, let's have a ceasefire, let's stop the rockets for the next 10 years and we will see what happens."
"For me as a person the most important thing is life and I'm ready to do everything for that. I'm ready to talk to the devil," the mayor was quoted by the British newspaper as saying.
Moyal told The Guardian that Israel was at risk of losing the moral high ground if political pressure for a massive military operation grows.
"Maybe one day in the future we will lose our patience and our values and invade," he was quoted as saying. "Imagine 20 kids (in Sderot) being killed in a kindergarten by a missile - then the Israel government would have to act and would lose its morality. If we don't talk we go deeper and deeper into war. If we don't talk we should fight."
'There is no such bubble'
He added that a major military escalation would be needed to stop the rockets and that would come at the price of "innocent people being killed on both sides".
After folding up their protest encampment in Jerusalem, on Thursday Sderot residents moved their tents to Tel Aviv's Rabin Square. The Sderot Municipality's operations will also be conducted in Tel Aviv until further notice.
"We have come here to settle in the residents' hearts and issue a manifesto saying that we cannot continue with the current situation. We have come here to shatter the concept of the Tel Avivian bubble because there is no such bubble," Moyal said after the move.
