Israel vows to keep up pressure on Gaza

Israel will keep up military and economic pressure on the Hamas-run Gaza Strip to try to halt rocket fire, Deputy Prime Minister Haim Ramon said on Thursday after two days of bloodshed.

“The military and economic pressure as well as the international isolation of the Gaza Strip will end up producing results,” Ramon told army radio.

The comments came after an explosion of violence in Gaza that has seen 24 people, both civilians and militants, killed over the course of two days despite renewed peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians.

Ramon once again ruled out Israel holding any talks with Hamas, the Islamic Resistance Movement which violently seized control of Gaza seven months ago. He said Israel would stop its operations if militants in the impoverished territory stopped firing rockets and mortars.

“There is no need to negotiate with Hamas, if the rocket firings stop, we will cease operating in the Gaza Strip,” he said.

“But it has to be clear that sooner or later we will hit all those who fire the rockets,” Ramon said.

Israel has launched near daily operations against militants in Gaza aiming to stop the near daily rocket and mortar fire from the territory. More than 120 Palestinians, most of them militants, have died in the strikes since the two sides formally relaunched the Middle East peace process in late November.

On Wednesday, five people died in Gaza from Israeli fire, including a teenage boy, his father and his uncle who were killed when an Israeli missile struck a civilian car in what the army said was an error. The previous day 19 Palestinians, most of them Hamas militants including the son of senior leader Mahmud Zahar, were killed in clashes with Israeli troops.

In response, Hamas which is sworn to the destruction of the Jewish state, fired off a salvo of rockets for the first time in several months into Israel, lightly wounding more than 10 people.

JERUSALEM, Thursday AFP