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Israeli President Moshe Katsav and Defense Minister Amir Peretz in Sderot. (AP)
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| By Israel Insider staff and partners June 20, 2006 |
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Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz hinted Monday that the army would operate more forcefully against Palestinian militants to stop them from launching rockets at Israel.
Palestinians have increased the rocket fire from the Gaza Strip since Israel withdrew from the coastal territory in September. The homemade rockets rarely cause casualties but have seriously disrupted life in southern Israel, where they fall almost daily. Israel frequently carries out airstrikes against Palestinian militants it believes are involved in rocket attacks.
In presenting the results of a military investigation of the June 9 blast that killed seven members of one family that was picnicking on the beach, Peretz said the explosion was not caused by an Israeli shell fired at the time, as the Palestinians have charged, but by an explosive buried in the sand.
Peretz has not ruled out the possibility that Israeli ordnance caused the Gaza blast, his office said Monday.
The investigation did not conclude how the explosive got there, or who it belonged to, but Israeli officials have accused Palestinian militants of planting them there to prevent Israeli troops from ambushing rocket launchers.
Maj. Gen. Meir Klifi, the officer who headed the Israeli investigation, said tests on shrapnel removed from the body of an injured girl taken to an Israeli hospital proved it was not from an Israeli shell.
At a Cabinet meeting on Sunday, Peretz told ministers the blast could have been caused by unexploded Israeli ordnance that had already been on the beach, his office said.
Peretz suggested Monday that the airstrikes would escalate in an effort to stop the rocket fire.
"The groups acting today are obviously groups we can identify, and we intend to act against them," Peretz told reporters after meeting with security commanders and lawmakers. "We definitely intend to stop the firing of rockets toward Israel."
Israel had trained heavy artillery fire on the northern Gaza Strip to strike at rocket launchers there, but halted the shelling after the Gaza beach blast on June 9.
Palestinians say Israeli shelling was to blame, but Israel says the blast was caused by explosives laid by Palestinian militants or by unexploded ordnance from earlier Israeli shellings.
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