Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told members of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Thursday that a cease-fire with Hamas was not on the agenda.

Netanyahu was asked a number of times whether the government had certain political goals and whether he was in contact with Egypt or other countries to try to bring about a cease-fire through diplomatic means, MKs said.

"I am not talking to anybody about a cease-fire right now," Netanyahu told the committee. "It's not even on the agenda."

Netanyahu also stressed that he had received understanding and support from every foreign leader he had spoken to in the last day. "French President Francois Hollande told me that I am right and even issued a statement condemning the rocket fire afterward," Netanyahu said.

Committee chairman Ze'ev Elkin proposed taking harsher steps against Gaza, including cutting of water and electricity from Israel into the Strip. Netanyahu said in response: "legal advisers will not allow that."

Netanyahu added that he had ordered an increase in air strikes on the Gaza Strip by emphasized that Israel could not allow itself to take such steps, like other countries do in war. "We can't do what the Russians did to the Chechens," he said.