Heads Up, Hamas!
It’s hammer time. AFP:
Israel threatened on Sunday 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 Islamists.
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 violently seizing power there in June 2007.
Militant rocket and mortar fire continued on Sunday, the Israeli army said, reporting that one person was slightly wounded. A Palestinian medic said a woman had been injured in northern Gaza by shrapnel from a tank shell but the military denied firing in the area.
“Israel must topple the Hamas rule in Gaza and a government under my command will do just that,” Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, leader of the governing Kadima party, was quoted as saying by Israeli media.
Benjamin Netanyahu, the leader of the right-wing Likud party which is leading in opinion polls, 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 militant rocket attacks from Gaza.
“Right now we have to go from passive response to active assault.”
Senior defence officials said after the weekly cabinet meeting that Israel was preparing to take action to halt the rocket strikes.
“We are preparing our response to the Hamas threat, with the decision yet to be taken on the timing and the scale,” Amos Gilad, a senior adviser to Defence Minister Ehud Barak, told public radio.
JPost has more on the political bickering, with Barak slamming “those who have never experienced or seen a war, people who are now becoming promoters of ‘different politics.’ “
Topics: Israel, Palestinians
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 9:44 am on Monday, December 22, 2008
3 Responses to “Heads Up, Hamas!”
Leave a Reply
Trackback URLYou must be logged in to post a comment.
December 22nd, 2008 at 12:06 pm
I would love nothing more than to see Hamas disappear into the dustbin of history, but I imagine an Israeli invasion will be greeted with outraged shrieks around the world about cruel Zionist imperialism.
December 22nd, 2008 at 4:11 pm
Sadly, RebeccaH, the world would rather mourn another Holocaust than see Israel defend itself and eliminate a force that is a threat to it and is allied with forces that threaten western civilization. Sadly, they don’t see the threat to Israel or themselves.
December 25th, 2008 at 5:10 pm
Roght you are GHS. There is something about armed Jews defending themselves against genocide that makes an awful lot of people around the world nervous, even drives them hysterical, and I can only wonder why.