Israel's top leadership was to debate yesterday whether to pursue a truce with Hamas' Gaza rulers, or embark on a broad military operation to stop the stream of rocket and mortar attacks by Palestinian militants on southern Israel.
For months, Egypt has been trying to broker a truce between the two sides in an effort to halt the deadly cycle of militant attacks on southern Israel, followed by Israeli air and ground strikes on the Gaza Strip. But the ceasefire efforts have faltered over Israel’s demand that Hamas free an Israeli soldier captured two years ago and Hamas’ demand that Israel lift a blockade that has confined Gazans to their tiny seaside territory and deepened their poverty.
Although it has long threatened to launch a large-scale incursion against Gaza militants, Israel has so far limited its military operations to pinpoint strikes. A broad campaign carries the risk of high Israeli military and Palestinian civilian casualties, and that has been the major deterrent.
But with four Israelis killed so far this year, Israel’s leadership is under domestic pressure to do something about the near-daily assaults on its territory. Israel’s top officials — Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni — were to sit down to discuss what course to take.
Overhanging their discussion was a new corruption probe against Olmert, which threatens to topple him and possibly his government. Both Livni and Barak are working to unseat Olmert, but a Gaza operation could put any political maneuvers on hold.
Just before they met, the full Cabinet was to devote part of its weekly session to discuss the situation in Gaza, and ministers with security responsibilities are to hold further talks on Gaza today.
Four rockets and four mortars were fired from Gaza at nearby Israeli communities early yesterday, but no casualties were reported, the military said.
This week, Hamas will mark the first anniversary of its violent takeover of the coastal strip from security forces affiliated with moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. The Islamic militant group, which has killed more than 250 Israelis in suicide attacks, rejects the Jewish state’s right to exist, but has said publicly that it is interested in a truce to rearm and regroup.
Hamas recently allowed the captured Israeli soldier to write a third letter to his parents, making good on their promise to former US president Jimmy Carter during his visit to the region in April.
Carter representatives delivered the letter to the parents of Corporal Gilad Schalit on Monday. Israel’s Yediot Ahronot newspaper yesterday cited Schalit’s father, Noam, as saying that in the letter, the soldier asked to be rescued and pleaded for his life.
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