Palestinian youths sit in a building destroyed in recent years in the conflict with Israel in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, Wednesday, June 18, 2008. Israel officially confirmed Wednesday that a cease-fire with the Hamas rulers of the Gaza Strip will begin Thursday morning in an effort to end a year of fighting that has killed more than 400 Palestinians and seven Israelis. (Eyad Baba/AP Photo)From News24:
Jerusalem - 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.
Senior officials said after the weekly Cabinet meeting that Israel was preparing a "response" to continuing rocket strikes from the besieged Palestinian coastal strip.
"We are preparing our response to the Hamas threat, with the decision yet to be taken on the timing and the scale," Amos Gilad, a senior adviser to Defence Secretary Ehud Barak, told public radio after ministers debated whether to launch a major ground incursion.
"We have to prepare for it carefully, like for a surgical operation," he said.
Earlier, a senior Israeli defence official told AFP that a major military confrontation in the territory was unavoidable after militants again targeted southern Israel with rockets.
"It is obvious where we are heading in Gaza. The situation is intolerable but clear. The army's considerations are the only thing that is deciding when events will unfold," the defence official said on condition of anonymity.
Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, who leads the centrist Kadima party that heads the governing coalition, vowed to topple Hamas if she becomes prime minister after snap elections called for February.
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My Comment: I am skeptical that Israel will start a war now .... the soldiers will need to be called up, and an election is now underway. This warning is more as a signal to Hamas that if they start their rocket attacks in the enxt few weeks, israel will respond.