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“We meet at a challenging time. Israel is obviously in a very turbulent neighbourhood, and this gives us an opportunity once again to reaffirm the unbreakable bond between the United States and Israel, and our ironclad commitment to making sure that Israel is secure.

Throughout the summer, obviously all of us were deeply concerned about the situation in Gaza. I think the American people should be very proud of the contributions that we made to the Iron Dome programme to protect the lives of Israelis at a time when rockets were pouring into Israel on a regular basis.

I think we also recognize that we have to find ways to change the status quo so that both Israeli citizens are safe in their own homes and schoolchildren in their schools from the possibility of rocket fire, but also that we don’t have the tragedy of Palestinian children being killed as well.” (US President Barak Obama speaking in the Oval Office alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, 01/10/ 2014)