Following a weekend that saw around 15,000 Palestinian rioters wreak violence on the Gaza border, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a warning to Hamas on Sunday.
“Hamas, apparently, has not internalized the message,” Netanyahu said of the Gaza-ruling Islamist terror group at a weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem. “If they do not stop the violent attacks against us, they will be stopped in a different way and it will be painful — very painful.”
“We are very close to a different kind of activity, an activity that will include very powerful blows,” the prime minister continued. “If it has sense, Hamas will stop firing and stop these violent disturbances — now.”
At least seven Palestinians were killed on the border on Friday.
The IDF said rioters had been “hurling rocks, explosive devices, firebombs and grenades” at Israeli troops and at the border fence.
Lt. Col Jonathan Conricus, of the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit, tweeted that one group had “detonated a bomb on the Israel-Gaza border fence,” allowing around 20 people to climb through the hole.
He said around five members of the group had then launched an organized attack against a military post inside Israel and all had been killed by IDF troops.
The Israel-Gaza border has been the scene of weekly Hamas-orchestrated riots since the end of March. Around 200 Palestinians have died in the unrest.
The IDF says its troops have used “riot dispersal means” and have fired “in accordance with standard operating procedures.”
One Israeli soldier has been killed by a Palestinian sniper, and tracts of Israeli land have been scorched by incendiary kites and balloons.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman warned Sunday that war with Hamas in Gaza was drawing ever closer.
Speaking at the beginning of the weekly Cabinet meeting Sunday, Netanyahu said that “Hamas has yet to get the message that if it fails to stop its aggression it will be halted through other means and it will be painful, very painful.”
Netanyahu’s comments came after mass protests on Friday, during which several Palestinians breached the border fence and attacked an IDF position. Five Palestinians were killed in the incident and two more were killed during the violent protest along the border fence.
“We are very close to taking the kind of action that will include very painful strikes. If Hamas has any sense it will stop,” Netanyahu added.
Liberman was even more forceful warning that war with Gaza had become “inevitable.”
Liberman told the Hebrew language Ynet website that “We have reached the moment – we must strike Hamas with the hardest blow. We have made every effort and exhausted every possibility… War is inevitable.”
“Hamas has turned violence on the fence into a strategic weapon by which they hope to erode our ability to withstand and deter,” he told Ynet. “We have reached the moment that we have to strike the hardest blow possible on Hamas, but…the cabinet will have to decide.”
Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan also weighted in on the issue in an interview with Israel Radio, saying that: “Hamas is responsible for everything that is happening. If, in the coming days, we do not reach an understanding and quiet does not resume [on the Gaza border], there is a considerable probability of a major campaign.”
Nearly seven months of continued violence along the Gaza border have daily incendiary arson attacks that have destroyed thousands of acres of land in southern Israel and caused millions of shekels worth of damages.
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