by Lilach Shoval and Israel Hayom Staff
Following forceful response to rocket fire from Gaza Strip, Defense Minister Lieberman accuses Hamas of robbing Gazans to fund terror instead caring for them • Lieberman's approach indicates future retaliations to rocket fire will no longer be restrained.
Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman
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Photo credit: Ariel Hermoni / Defense Ministry  |
A day after the Israel Defense Forces bombed a
number of Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip in response to a rocket
attack on the southern Israeli town of Sderot, Defense Minister Avigdor
Lieberman said, "Israel can't be expected to allow Hamas to arm itself."
"We can't be expected to allow them to rob the
residents of Gaza," Lieberman said. "They charge taxes and instead of
building buildings, they built tunnels."
Speaking during a tour of the northern border,
Lieberman said, "You know my opinions. I don't need to add anything
new. What we need to understand is that my approach is rehabilitation
for demilitarization. That is the formula. They know that whenever they
go into crisis, Israel solves the problem, or the U.N. solves it, or the
EU. They are not interested in solving their own crisis; they just want
to build up military power.
"Seventy percent of their tax revenue goes to
building up military power and re-arming. They don't want to take care
of the citizens, they only want rockets and tunnels."
Following Israel's unusually forceful response
-- striking dozens of targets across Gaza Monday -- to the single
rocket that landed in Sderot, calm has now been restored. Senior Israeli
military officials insisted following the retaliation that Israel was
not planning on escalating the tension.
Assuming that Hamas decides to maintain
restraint, the latest clash appears to be over. But a top military
official declared that the "equation with Gaza has changed."
The timing of the forceful Israeli response appears to suggest that the IDF seized an opportunity to target key Hamas assets.
The rocket that struck Sderot on Sunday was
the second projectile fired from Gaza into Israel since Lieberman
assumed the post of defense minister in May. The retaliation for the
first strike was considered standard, with the bombing of four Hamas
targets in Gaza. But Lieberman, who has declared in the past that Hamas
attacks should be met with a forceful response, was reportedly unhappy
with the standard retaliation and decided to change the policy.
The political echelon stressed that Sunday's
forceful retaliation was designed to send a clear message that Israel
would no longer be as forgiving as it has been in the past. A source
said Monday that "Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's policy is to
prevent a drizzle of rocket fire."
Meanwhile, Hamas official Mahmoud al-Zahar
confirmed that the organization "remains committed to the truce
agreement with the Israeli occupation, as long as they halt the strikes
in Gaza."
Al-Zahar stressed that if the Israeli strikes continue, "Hamas' response will be decisive and forceful."
"The Israeli occupation has openly signaled that it is not interested in escalation and concluded the confrontation," he said.
Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri echoed
al-Zahar's remarks, but added that "the Zionist occupation will not
succeed in imposing new policies on the resistance."
The Salafi organization Aknaf Beit al-Maqdis,
affiliated with the Islamic State group in Gaza, issued a statement
saying, "Just as the children of Gaza are suffering, so will the
children of Sderot suffer." The group warned that the rocket fire into
Israel's south will continue and declared that it was not a "Hamas'
puppet."
Israel's response to Sunday's rocket strike appears to
indicate that future rocket attacks will not be tolerated, even if not
perpetrated by Hamas, and will not fall back into the standard pattern
of small-scale retaliations. In all likelihood, the new defense minister
will demand harsher, stronger retaliations, particularly if the next
rocket causes damage or loss of life.
Lilach Shoval and Israel Hayom Staff
Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=35875
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