By Jerusalem Newswire Editorial Staff
Aug 25, 2005
Sderot Mayor Eli Moyal demanded to know Thursday why the Sharon government failed to unleash a harsh military response after Gaza-based Palestinian Arabs fired two Kassam rockets at his town.
Both projectiles landed in an open area of Sderot, inflicting no casualties.
Both Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Defense Minister Sha'ul Mofaz had made it abundantly clear, Moyal said, that if the Arabs fired even one rocket during or after the removal of Gaza's Jews, Israel's response would be unprecedented in its severity.
Israel's ?response will be of a different kind, with an addition of severe means, if [attacks persist] during the evacuation, or if there will be terror after we leave the Gaza Strip,? Sharon told reporters last month.
?Those who continue to fight us [after the withdrawal] will meet the full force of the IDF and the security forces,? Sharon promised the nation in a televised address on August 15, as police officers and soldiers delivered eviction notices to Gaza's Jews.
Appearing on Channel One's ?Politics? program two days later, Mofaz insisted Israel would respond harshly the moment the first rocket fell following the ?disengagement.?
Moyal, whose town has suffered thousand of ?Palestinian? rocket and mortar attacks over the past five years, has long opposed the Gaza withdrawal, believing it would allow the Arabs to target Sderot with far more deadly weapons than homemade rockets in the future.