Israeli defense minister: all-out confrontation in Gaza possible

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Monday that Israel may eventually have to launch a wide- scale military operation in Gaza in order to curtail sporadic rocket attacks. "I do not rule out the possibility that the time will come in which we'll find ourselves in a broad, all-out confrontation -- but I don't see any value in prematurely rushing into things," Barak said in an interview with Army Radio on Monday. The defense minister's comment came amid a lull in the worst round of fighting between Israel and Palestinian militants in months, with rocket attacks and reprisal airstrikes claiming the lives of one Israeli civilian and 11 Palestinians since hostilities began last Wednesday. Overnight Sunday, an Israeli aircraft confirmed a direct hit on a rocket launching squad in southern Gaza shortly after it fired a projectile into Israel, the military said in a statement. Militants soon followed suit by firing three missiles that landed in open areas, causing no casualties or damage to property. Schools throughout major cities in southern Israel remained closed on Monday, despite assurances from the army's Home Front Command that the rocket threat had ended. Barak flatly denied reports that an Egyptian-brokered truce between Israeli and Islamic Jihad, the group responsible for most of the latest rocket barrages, was in place. "It's true that messages that Hamas and other (militant groups) want to halt (the fighting) were received from the Egyptians. Whoever wants to stop should stop," Barak said. "We judge them only by their deeds and behavior. As far as we are concerned, Hamas bears responsibility for everything that is happening in Gaza," he said. Barak dismissed as "baseless" criticism voiced by heads of communities that have come under rocket fire and right-of-center parliamentarians that Israel was being dragged into reacting to the violence, rather than taking an initiative and stepping up military operations. "We are busy with one thing: protecting the country's citizens and ensuring their well-being and security in a complex reality. We're not busy 'setting fires' just to appear as initiators," Barak asserted. The defense minister reiterated that while Israel was not seeking to escalate the violence, it would neither accept "any ceasefires" nor cease defending its citizens with "any measure necessary." In late 2008, repeated Palestinian rocket attacks against southern Israel prompted then-Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to order an invasion into Gaza dubbed "Cast Lead" in which more than 1,000 Palestinians and a dozen Israeli troops were killed. On Monday, Barak said the activation of mass military forces required cautious judgment, noting that he "did not miss" returning to Gaza after having spent decades in the coastal enclave as a career soldier. He said that in the meantime, the Israeli army was "responding very strongly" to occasional rocket attacks, and deploying Iron Dome, a joint Israeli-American system designed to intercept short- range projectiles in mid-flight, exploiting its testing phase in real-world situations. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday also denied that Israel was committed to an Egyptian-brokered truce. "There is no ceasefire. The army is defending residents of the South and is destroying the rocket launchers," Netanyahu said in remarks communicated by his office. "I promise that the other side will pay heavier prices than those it has paid up until now, until it stops firing," Netanyahu said.