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War on Terror

MK: Respond to shelling with heavy force


By Jerusalem Newswire Editorial Staff
May 19, 2005

?Palestinian? terrorists fired more than 60 mortar shells and rockets at Jewish communities in the Gaza Strip during a 24-hour period starting shortly after noon Wednesday.

One Israeli Jew was lightly wounded in the intense bombardment.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Defense Minister Sha'ul Mofaz weighed Israel's possible responses to the anti-Jewish violence, ultimately choosing the route of verbal warnings.

Deputy Defense Minister Ze'ev Boim cautioned that if PLO chief Mahmoud Abbas failed to control the situation as per his promises, Israel would be forced to renew military incursions into PA-controlled Gaza.

Ha'aretz quoted defense officials as saying Israel preferred to respond to the shelling ?with restraint,? fearing that a more heavy-handed retaliation would unleash further Arab aggression.

Senior Likud MK Yuval Steinitz, meanwhile, urged Sharon to launch a sweeping ground offensive in Gaza and crush the terrorists' ability to threaten the lives of local Jews.

?Israel should now embark on a Defensive Shield 2 operation in Gaza, in order to derail the Hamas' rise to power and the rehabilitation of terror infrastructures,? said Steinitz, who also heads the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.

National Union MK Uri Ariel wondered why Gaza's Jewish residents, who Sharon plans to uproot this summer, were not ?worthy of protection and an IDF response like the residents of the rest of the country??

Over 5,500 mortars and rockets have been fired at Gaza's Jews since the start of the Arab-initiated ?Oslo War? more than four years ago.

Despite the enormous number of attacks, an astonishingly small number of Jewish residents have been killed or injured.

Last month, Jewish residents of southern Gaza's Katif Bloc published a book recounting many of the miracles whereby lives were saved during the artillery sieges, and explaining that this was a sign of God's intention to keep them planted in that part of Israel's promised land.

?We have faith that G-d did not perform all these miracles for us merely so that we could be expelled from our homes,? Arutz 7 quoted the book's editor as writing.

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