Israel threatens major offensive against Gaza

ISRAEL: 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.

Israel launched two air raids late Sunday targeting rocket launchers and an unidentified armed Palestinian group, a military spokesman said. Palestinian hospital sources said three activists and a child were wounded.

“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. “Israel must react when it is fired upon, must re-establish its force of dissuasion and stop the rockets.”

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.

AFP