Israeli civilians are living through their own version of the Blitz, the Israeli ambassador to the UK has said as as diplomatic efforts continued to find ways to end the escalating conflict in Gaza.
In an appeal for support for Israeli military action from the British public, Daniel Taub compares the Hamas rocket attacks on Israeli cities to Nazi Germany's bombing raids on Britain during the Second World War.
Writing on The Huffington Post UK on Tuesday, Taub says that just as Hitler wanted to "terrorise and cow" the people of Britain with bombing raids on their cities, "over one million Israelis have been forced to live under similar conditions, seeking refuge in bomb shelters as a result of thousands of Hamas rocket and mortar attacks".
"While the rockets targeting Israeli civilians – men, women, and children – do not carry as deadly a payload as that of the German bombs of World War II, their aim is equally sinister and illegitimate: to instill fear in the hearts of Israelis and undermine their right to live in a free and independent state," he says.