 Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's government is under growing pressure to reoccupy the northern part of Gaza in a move to end the firing of Qassam rockets into Israel by Palestinian militants. Two senior Likud members including former Defence Minister, Moshe Arens, have called on the government to embark on a major military operation that would see the Israeli army (IDF) launch a ground attack in northern Gaza. On Friday, Likud member, Yuval Steinitz, who is the former chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee, called on the military to launch a ground attack in Gaza similar to Operation Defensive Shield in the West Bank, which the IDF launched following the Passover bombing of a Netanya hotel in 2002. "I call on the Israeli government not to wait any longer and to begin a comprehensive ground operation in Gaza to fundamentally damage the terror infrastructure in a few weeks," Steinitz told Israel Radio. Steinitz's comments followed similar statements made by Arens. "The obvious move to cut down on this danger is for the IDF to reoccupy unilaterally some of the areas in the northern Gaza Strip that were so foolishly abandoned unilaterally last August."
|