JERUSALEM: Israel yesterday threatened to launch a major offensive against the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip as violence simmered around the impoverished territory days after the end of a truce with the popular Palestinian group.
The two frontrunners in the race to become prime minister after a snap election in February both vowed to topple Hamas, which has run Gaza since 2006.
“Israel must topple the Hamas rule in Gaza and a government under my command will do just that,” Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, who leads the Kadima party that heads the government coalition, was quoted as saying by Israeli media. “Israel must react when it is fired upon, must re-establish its force of dissuasion and stop the rockets.”
Benjamin Netanyahu, the leader of the right-wing Likud party which is currently leading in opinion polls ahead of the February vote, echoed the sentiment.
“In the long run, we have no choice but to topple Hamas rule,” he was quoted as saying by the Ynet news website as he toured the southern Israeli town of Sderot, which has borne the brunt of rocket attacks from Gaza. “Right now we have to go from passive response to active assault.”
Senior defense officials said after the weekly Cabinet meeting that Israel was preparing to respond to continuing rocket strikes from the besieged Palestinian coastal strip.
“We are preparing our response to the Hamas threat, with the decision yet to be taken on the timing and the scale,” said Amos Gilad, a senior adviser to Defense Minister Ehud Barak.
Earlier, a senior Israeli defense official told AFP that a major military confrontation in the territory was unavoidable after Hamas men targeted southern Israel with rockets. “It is obvious where we are heading in Gaza. The situation is intolerable but clear. The army’s considerations are the only thing that is deciding when events will unfold,” the official said on condition of anonymity.
Palestinian witnesses said an Israeli infantry unit backed up by three tanks was operating several hundred meters inside Palestinian territory in southern Gaza and had arrested a farmer.
An Israeli Army spokesman denied there was an operation, saying soldiers conducting maintenance work on the Israeli side of the border shot back after coming under fire and did not report hitting anyone.
Tensions around Gaza have risen steadily since Friday, when Hamas said it would not renew a six-month truce with Israel that came into effect in June after months of Egyptian mediation.
Fawzi Barhoom, a Hamas spokesman, said: “Our leaders have taken preventive measures to face the Israeli escalation. We are facing an enemy and a wide offensive and this requires taking all the procedures to remain in the field of resistance.” His comments come amid reports that Israel could target Hamas leaders, a tactic it has used previously. In 2004, Israeli forces assassinated Hamas founders Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and Abdul Aziz Rantisi.
Another Hamas spokesman yesterday denied any knowledge of contacts to renew the cease-fire.
Ismail Radwan said reports that Egypt was pressuring Hamas to renew the truce were only “trial balloons” intended to gauge the extent to which the group was interested in resuming the truce. “The lull has expired and we will not renew it,” Radwan added.
Gaza, the aid-dependent land of some 1.5 million people, has been subject to an Israeli blockade and repeated raids since 2006, when Hamas won Palestinian parliamentary elections.
