JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli President Shimon Peres says the killing of civilians by Israeli air raids on Gaza presents a moral dilemma, but argues there is scant alternative as long as the Islamic militants who rule the coastal strip refuse to stop firing rockets at much of Israel.

"There is a moral problem, but I don't have a moral answer to it," the Nobel laureate said Tuesday in an interview with the Associated Press. "If they are shooting at us, and don't let our mothers and their children to have a full night's sleep, what can we do?"

Peres also predicted Gaza's Hamas rulers will eventually accept a cease-fire and bemoaned the state of the surrounding Arab world, beset by "terrorists who are destroying nation after nation without a vision."