Region | Palestinian Territories

Israel's Livni vows to topple Hamas if elected prime minister

Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni vowed on Sunday to end Hamas's rule in the Gaza Strip if she is elected prime minister in a February election.

  • Reuters
  • Published: 16:30 December 21, 2008
  • Gulf News

Occupied Jerusalem: Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni vowed on Sunday to end Hamas's rule in the Gaza Strip if she is elected prime minister in a February election.

"The state of Israel, and a government under me, will make it a strategic objective to topple the Hamas regime in Gaza," Livni told members of her centrist Kadima party.

"The means for doing this should be military, economic and diplomatic."

Meanwhile, Israel's prime minister brushed aside calls for an immediate large-scale operation in the Gaza Strip in response to an escalation of cross-border rocket fire after a truce expired.

Palestinian fighters have fired more than 50 makeshift rockets and mortar shells at Israel since a six-month-old Egyptian-brokered ceasefire with Hamas ended on Friday. Over the weekend, one Palestinian commander was killed in an Israeli air attack and at least one person in southern Israel was injured by shrapnel from a mortar shell.

Severe action

Unless Hamas stopped the salvoes, Israeli cabinet minister Isaac Herzog said the army would have no choice but to take "severe action," though he did not say what that might entail.

"It needs to be clear. A strike in Gaza will come, and it will be hard and painful," Herzog said.

But outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert suggested a more measured approach for now, underscoring the difficult choices facing the government in the run-up to a February 10 election.

The rocket fire has increased pressure on Olmert and his government to launch a major operation that could result in heavy casualties on both sides.

The right-wing Likud party of former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Olmert and his government of failing to protect Israeli civilians bordering the Gaza Strip.

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