JERUSALEM, 26 April 2007 — Israel yesterday threatened a serious response one day after Hamas militants fired their first barrage of rockets into the Jewish state for five months and declared an end to a November truce.

Although Prime Minister Ehud Olmert reportedly ruled out a large-scale operation against the Gaza Strip, a statement issued by his office after top-level defense talks threatened serious action.

“Israel does not need proof that Hamas is a terrorist organization that has never renounced terrorism ... and therefore will not hesitate to take serious measures against those who try to attack its sovereignty by firing rockets on its territory and attempted attacks against its soldiers,” a statement said. “Israel considers as extremely serious the acts of terrorism from Hamas in recent weeks. After briefly adhering to a cease-fire from the Gaza Strip, Hamas decided to violate it,” the prime minister’s office statement said.

“The army has been ordered to continue its preparations to prevent other attacks against Israeli territory from the Gaza Strip,” the text added.

There have been growing calls in Israel for tough military action against the Gaza Strip with intelligence sources warning that Palestinian militants are exploiting a five-month truce to stockpile arms and regroup.

Israel has warned several times in recent months that it would not allow Hamas and other armed factions to strengthen in the Gaza Strip.

“We feel today free to do things that we avoided doing several months ago. Anyone who wants to try us, will get what he deserves,” Deputy Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh told public radio before the meeting. “We are not interested in escalation. We want to do whatever is necessary to lower the level of terror” in the Gaza Strip.

On Tuesday, the armed wing of Hamas claimed to have fired nearly 100 projectiles into Israel in an Independence Day attack as the Jewish state marked its 59th anniversary. The rocket fire caused no casualties or damage.

The Ezzeddine Al-Qassam Brigades, whose sister political branch is the senior partner in the Palestinian coalition government, had said it was abandoning the truce following Israeli raids that killed nine Palestinians at the weekend.

It marked the first time the armed wing of Hamas claimed a rocket attack on Israel, despite dozens of previous such assaults from the Gaza Strip since militants agreed on Nov. 26 to halt such fire. The radical Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, which is linked to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah party, also claimed to have fired four rockets.

Talks were also scheduled in the Gaza Strip yesterday between Egyptian officials and Palestinian armed factions in a bid to shore up the five-month truce that saw Israeli troops leave Gaza and militants vow to hold rocket fire.

Meanwhile, amid controversy over failures of second war on Lebanon, Israel’s Northern Command chief Maj. Gen. Gadi Eizenkot said yesterday that the army was aware from the onset of last summer’s war in Lebanon that a military operation against Hezbollah would not secure the release of two soldiers kidnapped in a cross-border attack, contradicting past claims by Olmert. “After a couple of hours it became clear that we would not get the kidnapped soldiers back through military means,” Eizenkot said .

Eizenkot, who was the head of the Operations Directorate during the war, said that the army presented the government with a plan to weaken Hezbollah and never suggested that the soldiers could be freed. “It was clear that clear that a military operation would not bring them back,” Eizenkot told students at a Nahariya school.

Eizenkot’s words are in sharp contrast with Olmert’s pledge last summer in a key speech at the Knesset that the aim of the military operation against Hezbollah was to secure the release of two reservist soldiers. He added that before the July 12 attack the army possessed no specific warnings that Hezbollah was planning to kidnap Israeli soldiers.