Tel Aviv/Gaza City - Only Israel will decide when it will
stop its offensive in Gaza, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said Monday,
as the air force struck more targets in the strip and ground troops
battled with local militants on Gaza City's outskirts.
'I don't accept that in a war against terror the UN decides when
to stop,' Livni told Israel Radio Monday morning.
Israel when it takes care of itself does it best, she said
defiantly.
Israel did not estimate that the international community expected
it to implement Thursday's UN security council resolution, which
calls for an immediate ceasefire, 'immediately.'
Israel had 'worked around the clock' to try and put off the
resolution. Deflecting criticism, Livni said she did not attend the
UN debate in order not to grant it 'legitimacy' by being present.
She said the Gaza offensive had restored Israel's 'deterrence'
against militant factions seeking to attack it, hurt Hamas' ability
to fire rockets against it and 'changed the equation' between it and
the radical Islamic movement ruling Gaza.
Hamas now understands that Israel will act 'wildly' to any attacks
against it, she said regarding the 'deterrence.'
Israel was now acting to prevent Hamas from stocking up on new
long-range rockets and wanted both Egyptian and international
assistance in stopping weapons-smuggling to Gaza, which she said had
to be blocked 'also beyond Egypt.'
'One has to understand it begins in Iran,' she said.
Livni declined to say whether the offensive was in its final
stages or when it would end.
She said any decision to end the offensive would be made 'quietly'
because Hamas leaders hiding underground in Gaza were listening to
the radio's Arabic service. 'I won't give them that perk,' she said.
The Israel Air Force meanwhile kept up its attacks in Gaza,
striking more targets from the air overnight, albeit a significantly
smaller number than in the earlier stages of the war.
A military spokesman in Tel Aviv said the Israeli Air Force
attacked 12 targets throughout Gaza overnight, mostly houses of Hamas
activists which he said were storing rockets and hiding tunnels.
A few rocket-launching sites were also hit, as well as another
smuggling tunnel near the border with Egypt.
Witnesses reported also Israeli naval shelling along the coast,
and exchanges of fire between ground troops and local militants on
the outskirts of Gaza City.
While Israeli ground troops have not yet moved into the hearts of
populated areas in Gaza, they moved into another neighbourhood on the
city's outskirts Sunday, Sheikh Ajleen, in the west near the beach,
sparking fierce firefights with local gunmen.
Chief military spokesman, Brigadier Avi Benayahu, told a
television interview Sunday night that the army was now using reserve
troops in the fighting.
He refused, however, to say whether this indicated that the third
stage of the Gaza offensive - moving deeper into populated areas with
larger numbers of troops - had begun, or was imminent.
Hamas meanwhile also kept up its rocket attacks at Israel, with
militants launching some 20 on Sunday and several more on Monday
morning.
The death toll stood at more than 900 Palestinians and 13 Israelis
killed, as the offensive - aimed at curbing seven years of rocket and
mortar attacks from Gaza against southern Israel - entered its 17th
day Monday.
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