Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert promised that if Hamas continued its Gaza-based deadly rocket attacks on Israel, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) would respond with ‘disproportionate’ force.
After a cabinet meeting Sunday morning, Olmert stated that:
The Cabinet’s position from the outset was that if firing continues against residents of the South, there would be a sharp Israeli response that would be disproportional vis-a-vis the firing at residents of the State of Israel and at our forces. We will not go back to the rules of the game that the terrorist organizations tried to dictate in the past. We will act according to new rules that will ensure that we are not dragged into an unending shooting war on the southern border that denies southern residents a normal life.
Meanwhile, IDF Military Intelligence Chief Amos Yadlin believes that Hamas is currently acting in a defensive posture, concluding that the terrorist group “has been deterred, and is honoring the ceasefire, but is not deterring [other terrorist groups] enough.”
