Foreign Secretary comments on situation in Gaza and southern Israel 18 November 2012 Foreign Secretary William Hague was interviewed by Dermot Murnaghan on Sky News today about the situation in Gaza and southern Israel, and developments in Syria. Dermot Murnaghan (DM) : Well I'm joined now from Darlington by the Foreign Secretary William Hague and a very good morning to you Mr Hague. Now we know that the British Government has urged both sides to de-escalate this conflict. Given what we've seen and the comments we've heard this morning from Benjamin Netanyahu about being ready to significantly expand the operation, things seem to be going in the wrong direction. Foreign Secretary William Hague (WH) : Well yes that's right we're obviously gravely concerned about this situation. We are in touch with the Israelis directly, the Prime Minister spoke to the Israeli Prime Minister last night and I spoke to the Israeli Foreign Minister, also with the Egyptians efforts are going on to negotiate a cease fire, to come to an agreed cease fire, but clearly those have not been successful so far. We support those efforts. We call on Hamas again to stop the rocket attacks on Israel. It is Hamas that bears, as, as I've said before, the principle responsibility for starting all of this and we would like to see an agreed cease fire, an essential component of which is an end to those rocket attacks. In the absence of that cease fire we of course are calling