Rishi Sunak says the government will hold a COBRA meeting later today on the ongoing clashes between Israel and Hamas. Speaking at a PM Connect event at a business in Nottinghamshire the prime minister said Hamas, and those who support the group, are "fully responsible for appalling acts of terrorism". Report by Brooksl. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
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00:00 Shall we wave our cup?
00:02 [APPLAUSE]
00:04 Thank you, everyone, for the warm welcome.
00:15 It's fantastic to be here.
00:16 Oh, let me start with an apology, though,
00:18 because apparently you thought the king was coming this morning.
00:20 [LAUGHTER]
00:21 So anyway, next best thing, I hope.
00:24 I set out for all of you very clear five simple things
00:27 that I wanted to achieve for all of you.
00:29 And that was to halve inflation, grow the economy,
00:32 reduce debt, cut waiting lists, and to stop the boats.
00:36 Five priorities, five simple things
00:38 that you could hold me accountable for,
00:40 five things that I knew were your priorities
00:42 everywhere I went.
00:43 Those are the things that people said to me
00:45 that you need to focus on.
00:47 So look, those are some big decisions.
00:48 Net zero, money and tools for towns,
00:52 HS2, a generation of children growing up without smoking,
00:56 and big reforms for our education system.
00:59 You already mentioned you've had a lot of personal challenges
01:01 about the net zero UK targets.
01:06 Obviously, we see lots of negative news
01:08 about climate change and temperature increases.
01:11 Do you think that you've had to water down
01:14 your policy in any way?
01:16 So look, on this net zero, the most important thing
01:18 for everyone to know is that we've
01:20 stuck to all our targets.
01:22 We're going to change the approach to how we get there.
01:25 Destination is the same.
01:27 We're still going to hit those targets.
01:29 They're still better than anyone else's.
01:30 And by the way, we only account for 1%
01:33 of the world's emissions in the first place.
01:36 But we're still going to do all of that.
01:37 We're just going to do it in a more sensible way
01:39 that saves all of you money.
01:40 Now look, in this debate, there are people
01:42 who are incredibly ideological about it,
01:44 which is why I got all the criticism,
01:46 why everyone said to me, "You're watering down things
01:48 and you don't care about the planet."
01:49 Of course I do.
01:50 Hamas and the people that support Hamas
01:53 are fully responsible for appalling acts of terrorism.
01:58 We should call it out for what it is.
02:01 Citizens of Israel are being murdered.
02:05 Innocent people have been kidnapped, including children.
02:08 Obviously that's shocking and it's horrifying.
02:11 And they should be held accountable for that.
02:12 And what I've said to the Israeli prime minister
02:15 is that we will provide all the support that they need
02:18 to make sure that Israel can defend itself
02:21 against these kinds of attacks.
02:22 Now, we already have a very longstanding relationship
02:26 with Israel, we're one of their strongest allies.
02:28 We've provided in the past the kinds of equipment
02:31 that they've used to defend themselves
02:33 over the past couple of days.
02:34 And as I said to the prime minister,
02:36 we will continue to provide,
02:38 whether that's diplomatic, intelligence,
02:40 or security support as they need.
02:42 I'm chairing a Cobra of my ministerial colleagues
02:45 this afternoon, where we'll continue to discuss
02:48 the situation, but we're in close dialogue
02:51 with our Israeli counterparts.
02:52 And I know all of you will join me
02:54 in wanting to stand steadfast with the people of Israel
02:58 at this very difficult time for them.