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Israel decides to intensify
Gaza strikes
Jeffrey
Heller
Reuters
Sunday May 20, 2007
Israel said on Sunday it would step up strikes against Gaza militant
leaders involved in rocket attacks against southern Israel, but
stopped short of ordering a wider offensive in the coastal strip.
Prim Minister Ehud Olmert said the measures would be "accompanied
by a diplomatic effort together with the international community"
to resolve the tensions.
Ministers had resolved to "intensify operational steps...by
striking at terrorist infrastructure and those who operate the Qassam
attacks," Olmert told reporters, using Hamas's name for the
makeshift rockets.
Olmert said military operations would focus on the Hamas and Islamic
Jihad militants whom he accused of being responsible for an escalation
in rocket firings in the past week.
"If these strong steps don't bring about calm, the cabinet
will meet to weigh additional, more drastic steps," he added.
Israel has already stepped up air strikes against militants in
Gaza in response to rockets that have wounded a dozen Israelis,
killing at least 21 Palestinians, five of whom were civilians, local
residents say, since last Wednesday.
The latest decision would involve more pinpointed strikes against
military leaders of the two militant groups and rocket crews, in
a bid to prevent launchings from areas near the Gaza-Israeli border,
a political source told Reuters.
In an apparent bow to pressure from world leaders to rein in the
violence, the Israeli decision stopped short of expanding its military
operations into a ground offensive.
Israel has moved an undisclosed number of tanks, armored vehicles
and ground forces into areas just inside the Gaza border, raising
Palestinian fears of a wider offensive into the territory Israeli
settlers and soldiers quit in 2005.
PEACEKEEPERS PROPOSED
Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni broached the idea of agreeing
to the deployment of international peacekeepers in Gaza, particularly
along the Gaza border with Egypt to prevent weapons smuggling, the
political source added.
Israel has rejected such ideas in the past, saying foreign intervention
could interfere with its security plans.
There was no vote taken on that proposal, and a rightist minister,
Avigdor Lieberman, had a counter-suggestion that Israel reoccupy
that border zone known as the Philadelphi route, an idea rejected
by most of those present, the source said.
The source quoted Olmert as telling ministers:
"There is no ideal solution. Every solution has its disadvantages
and complications, but we are going beyond steps that we have decided
before."
Olmert is struggling to stay in office after an official report
criticized his handling of last year's Lebanon war and is under
domestic pressure to stop the rockets without getting bogged down
in another costly conflict.
The wave of rocket attacks has caused injuries and sparked panic
in Sderot and the surrounding area where a total of 40,000 people
live, cranking up rightist calls for greater military measures.
Lieberman, the rightist minister, threatened to bolt Olmert's coalition,
which would further weaken it, if he didn't step up military action
in Gaza. "Either they dismantle Hamas, or dismantle the (Israeli)
government," Lieberman said.
About 10 rockets were fired on Sunday, four striking in southern
Israel, causing no injuries, a military spokesman said.
Israel killed three suspected Hamas militants in a Gaza air strike
earlier on Sunday.
In Gaza, the latest Egyptian-brokered ceasefire appeared to be
holding after more than a week of fierce internal fighting between
Hamas Islamists and President Mahmoud Abbas's secular Fatah faction,
in which 49 Palestinians have been killed.
The Palestinian fighting has been the most deadly in Gaza since
Hamas and Fatah formed a unity government in March.
(Additional reporting by Allyn Fisher-Ilan in Jerusalem)
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