Israelis threaten to re-invade Gaza

Generals say rocket attacks won't be tolerated; the Palestinian premier says "we will not give in" to pressure.

THE NEW YORK TIMES

Israelis threaten to re-invade Gaza — The Bulletin, 15 April 2006 — The Bulletin · 15 April 2006

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JERUSALEM — Israeli generals threatened Friday to re-invade the Gaza Strip if Palestinian rocket attacks continued, keeping up a war of words and weapons even as Jews, Muslims and Christians celebrated their holy days. "I do not rule out ground operations if requested by the southern command of Israel," the army deputy chief of staff, Maj. Gen.

Moshe Kaplinski, told the nation's biggest-selling daily, Yediot Aharonot, in one of a spate of bellicose interviews in weekend newspapers. "If the times come, we will launch them." As thousands of Palestinians rallied after Friday prayer to protest Israeli shelling and the cutoff of international aid, the new Hamas leadership, broke and shunned, was no less adamant.

"We will not give in, and attempts to isolate the government will fail," Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh told a cheering crowd at a mosque in Gaza at the Jabaliya refugee camp.

"We are prepared to eat salt and olives." Western nations have suspended tens of millions of dollars in direct aid to the Palestinian Authority, demanding that Haniyeh's government renounce violence and recognize Israel's right to exist.

Stepping up the pressure, the U.S. government on Friday said it has barred Americans from most business dealings with the Palestinian government. In the past week, 18 Palestinians have been killed in artillery shelling and in Israeli airstrikes. The latest victims were two gunmen from al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade who were killed on Thursday as they tried to get through a fence.

On Thursday and Friday, Israeli troops, with armored bulldozers, ventured inside Gaza searching for explosives, the first such incursion since their withdrawal in September.

Kaplinski maintained in his interview that the Israeli military pressure was "beginning to bear fruit." He added, however, "More should be done to stop rocket attacks." The army's chief operations officer, Maj. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot, expressed similar views in a lengthy interview in Haaretz.

"If Hamas leaders don't act to stop the rockets, they must be hit hard and pay a heavy price," Eisenkot said. "What we saw up to now was just an introduction." Asked about a possible Israeli ground incursion into Gaza, he said, "It is possible things will go in that direction." In another interview, Maj. Gen.

Yitzhak Harel, the army's chief planning officer, told the Jerusalem Post: "We are at war. We will continue escalating our actions, and it is possible that eventually we will launch a ground operation in Gaza." He added: "The main issue, however, is that the other side needs to understand that even one launched rocket is not worth it for them.

We are almost there." This report includes material from the Associated Press.

How this transcription was made

Date and publication rest on the collector's slide label; no masthead, folio or printed dateline appears on this clipping.

Context added by this archive

Credit line above the text reads THE NEW YORK TIMES; no individual reporter is named in this version. Same day, same wire story as s002_2 (Omaha World Herald), where the byline is John Kifner and the premier's name is spelled "Ismail Haniya". This paper spells it "Ismail Haniyeh" and "al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade"; the other spells it "Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade".

Both print the Eisenkot quotation identically.

Cite this clipping

"Israelis threaten to re-invade Gaza," The Bulletin, 15 April 2006. Covering Palestine archive, CP-2006-034. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-2006-034