Israel carried out air strikes and Palestinians launched mortar bomb attacks yesterday despite a ceasefire in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, but Israel’s defence minister said a wider offensive was not imminent.
Responding to Egyptian efforts to broker a long-term truce, a Hamas spokesman said it would be prepared to halt hostilities for a year if a deal could be reached on lifting Israel’s blockade of the Strip and reopening border crossings.
On Sunday Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert promised a “disproportionate” military response to continuing rocket salvoes that Palestinian militants have described as payback for fresh Israeli attacks. However, his defence minister Ehud Barak signalled yesterday Israel would stop short of all-out war. “It is not our intention to have an Operation Cast Lead 2,” he said in an interview with the YNet news website.
“We said there would be a response and there was a response last night,” he said about Sunday’s air strikes. Mr Barak’s comments clashed with statements by foreign minister Tzipi Livni who said that, if necessary, Israel would mount a new offensive in the Gaza Strip to end rocket attacks.
Both Mr Barak, head of the centre-left Labor Party, and Ms Livni, chairman of the ruling centrist Kadima party, are candidates for prime minister in Israel’s February 10th election. Opinion polls forecast victory for right-winger Benjamin Netanyahu of Likud.
Yesterday, an Israeli aircraft attacked a car in the southern Gaza town of Rafah, killing one militant and wounding three other gunmen, medical officials said, identifying them as members of the Popular Resistance Committees. The Israeli military said it targeted a squad that fired two mortar bombs into southern Israel. – (Reuters)