Region | Palestinian Territories
Price 'will be paid for Hamas rocket attacks'
The atmosphere in and around Gaza continued to be charged with tension yesterday as Israel and Hamas stepped up their war of words and threats.
- By Jumana Al Tamimi, Associate Editor
- Published: 23:36 December 25, 2008
- Masked Palestinian fighters from the Popular Resistance Committees with homemade rockets on the outskirts of Gaza City. A spokesperson said the rockets were later fired at targets in Israel.
- Image Credit: AP
Dubai: The atmosphere in and around Gaza continued to be charged with tension yesterday as Israel and Hamas stepped up their war of words and threats.
Both sides were alert a day after Hamas showered Israel with scores of projectiles on Wednesday - the biggest number in many months - and a few days after their longest truce in nearly eight years expired last Friday.
Israel warned Hamas of the "heavy price" they would pay if their attacks on Israel continued, and Hamas warned Israel of the "gates of hell" that would be opened if Israel attacked Gaza.
"There is a point where every country and every leadership says - and this is what we say tonight as well - enough is enough," Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni warned during her scheduled visit to Cairo yesterday.
Palestinian analysts said both Israel and Hamas were trying to impose their own conditions on each other.
Analysts single out Hamas' attempts to be a counterpart to Israel in the Palestinian arena by matching its tactics and actions.
Tears of blood
"This has significant strategic meaning," former Palestinian planning minister Gassan Al Khatib said.
"The main side [in the equation] is the side that decides between going to war or reaching peace," Al Khatib said in an interview with Gulf News, adding that Hamas wants to fill that position by " boosting its position" in relation to Israel and fellow Palestinians.
For the first time, Palestinian rockets reached as far as 20 kilometres (12 miles) from Gaza City.
Hamas' military wing claimed its latest attack was in retaliation to the killing of several of its members by Israel, while the Israeli army said it had fired on fighters who were laying explosives along the Israeli-Gaza border.
"Hamas is responsible for these rocket attacks, and it will pay a big price," Defence Minister Ehud Barak said yesterday.
"We will not allow this situation to last."
Incursion
He did not elaborate. But defence officials, speaking on condition on anonymity were quoted by AP as saying the Israeli operation would likely begin with surgical airstrikes against rocket launchers and continue with a land incursion. Current weather conditions are hampering visibility and complicating air force missions, so the operation will not be launched until the skies clear, they added.
Israel has been, so far, reluctant to invade Gaza fearing heavy causalities and a negative impact on the results of the next February elections, analysts noted.
But Hamas vowed to step up attacks if Israel responded with strikes against 1.5-million-population of Gaza.
"Israel should know that any decision to attack the Gaza Strip will open the gates of hell and we will make you regret your stupidity with tears of blood," the group's armed wing the Ezzedine Al Qassam Brigades said in a statement.
The pan-Arab Al Hayat Arabic newspaper quoted a "senior source" as saying " Egypt is capable of stopping a major [Israeli] offensive or an invasion to the Gaza Strip."
"Such an offensive is not in the interest of Israel at all because it will create a big political and moral burden on the Arab countries," added the official.
Egypt mediated the earlier truce that expired last Friday.
Concerns: 'Two' palestines
Hamas escalation coincided with grave inter-Palestinian differences between Hamas and Fatah.
The differences have raised concerns among analysts that they might be a prelude to divisions and an emerging two "Palestines" - one in the West Bank and another in Gaza.
A Palestinian journalist noted Palestinians in the West Bank used to demonstrate when one of their comrades was killed by Israel in Gaza. But "not any more," he said.
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