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| By israelinsider staff April 25, 2007 |
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Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is scheduled to meet with senior security officials on Wednesday to discuss the appropriate response to the recent barrage of rockets from the Gaza Strip as well as a failed attempt to kidnap IDF soldiers on the Gaza border.
According to reports, the IDF will ask the Prime Minister for permission to carry out "pinpoint" operations against Hamas terror leaders and infrastructure in Gaza. Security officials told Ynetnews that the IDF would not request a large-scale ground operation in the Gaza Strip and that officials would likely recommend a limited response.
IDF sources reported that more than 10 Kassam rockets and 20 mortar shells were fired into the Negev Tuesday morning as a decoy for a terrorist infiltration aimed at kidnapping IDF soldiers stationed on the Gaza border.
Hamas' military wing claimed responsibility for the attack and said that the five-month ceasefire with Israel "no longer exists."
Hamas spokesman Abu Obeida said on a Palestinian radio station, "The cease-fire has been over for a long time, and Israel is responsible for that. This is a message to the Zionist enemy that our strikes will continue. We are ready to kidnap more and more, and kill more and more of your soldiers."
Apparently, Hamas considered the almost daily rocket attacks from Gaza to be within the guidelines of the ceasefire agreement.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, speaking from Rome after a meeting with the Italian Prime Minister, called the rocket attacks a "one-time violation of the truce."
He then called on Israel to demonstrate restraint so as to avoid "deterioration in the region."
Defense Minister Amir Peretz said during a meeting with senior IDF officials on Tuesday, "We will not allow Hamas to hide behind its political identity."
The Hamas statement marked the first time the terrorist organization has taken responsibility for firing shells and rockets at Israel since signing a cease-fire agreement last November.
An aide to Prime Minister Olmert told Ynetnews, "for the first time, the Hamas government has taken responsibility for a criminal terror attack which includes the firing of missiles into Israel. Israel needs no evidence to prove that this is Hamas' true face."
While Hamas continues to launch attacks on Israel, the IDF has limited its operations along the Gaza border to preventing imminent attacks.
The IDF had been on high alert in recent weeks, due to intelligence information that Hamas was planning to kidnap soldiers in an attack similar to the one last June in which IDF soldier Gilad Schalit was captured.
According to military sources, the IDF's heightened alert and an immediate response by ground forces and IAF helicopters patrolling over Gaza were able to prevent the kidnapping operation. If the preliminary reports hold true, no terrorists were able to infiltrate Israel.
According to an IDF source, the tactics used in Tuesday's attack were taken from Hizbullah, which used rockets attacks as a decoy when kidnapping Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser near Lebanon last summer. |
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