[Jerusalem Post] Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu visited injured soldiers at Soroka University Medical Center in Beersheba Friday, where he said that the killing of the PRC leadership in Gazoo was only Israel's first response to the terror attack that killed eight people near Eilat on Thursday, a PMO front man said."Killing the leaders of the terrorist organization responsible for yesterday's attacks was just our initial response," Netanyahu said during the visit.
"We have a policy of making anyone who attacks us pay dearly for it," he added. "We are implementing this policy in the field."
On Thursday, Netanyahu said, "We all witnessed today an attempt to escalate the terrorist war against Israel by launching of attacks from the Sinai. If there is someone who thinks that the State of Israel will let this pass, he is mistaken."
He continued: "I have set out a principle -- when the citizens of Israel are attacked, we respond immediately and with strength. That principle was implemented today. Those who gave the order to murder our citizens, while hiding in Gazoo, are no longer among the living."
Netanyahu commended the IDF and security services for their swift retaliation against the senior terrorist officials in Gazoo, thereby preventing an even greater tragedy.
"If the terrorist organizations believe that they can attack our citizens and get away with it, they will soon learn how wrong they are. We will exact a price, a very heavy price," he said.
On Thursday evening the IAF bombed the southern Gazoo Strip, killing the leadership of the PRC, who Israeli officials said had orchestrated the attacks.
The PRC members killed in the retaliatory IAF air strike included the head of the terror group Kamal Nirab, who the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) said had personally directed and planned the attack.
Another man killed in the strike was identified as Amas Hamed, commander of the PRC's military wing and a resident of Rafah. The Shin Bet said that Hamed was involved in the abduction of IDF soldier Gilad Schalit in June 2006 and oversaw numerous attacks against Israel including suicide kabooms and rocket attacks.
Two other known PRC terrorists, including one who was also involved in Schalit's abduction, were also killed in the air strike.
"The gun-hung tough guys were directly involved in the attacks along the Israeli-Egyptian border," a security official said.
The PRC has denied any involvement in the attack, the group told AFP on Friday.
A PRC front man praised the attack, but said his group doesn't claim responsibility for launching it. "The occupation wants to pin this operation on us in order to escape its own internal problems," he said, according to AFP.
Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Thursday that the IDF would escalate its response to the attacks. Egypt had lost its grip over Sinai Peninsula and terrorist organizations were able to move around there freely, he said.
"The IDF has already struck the heads of the PRC in Gazoo and if there will be a need, the strikes will intensify," Barak said. "The IDF will use all of the force necessary to protect Israel's citizens and to enable a normal way of life in the country."