Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, vowed on Sunday to further strike Palestinian resistance groups in Gaza.
‘ Israel will strike terror in every corner in the Gaza Strip’, Olmert told a weekly cabinet meeting.
The Israeli premier also instructed his defense minister, Ehud Barak, to step up attacks on what he termed ‘ those responsible for terror’ in the coastal region.
Such a declaration would likely double hardships of the Gaza’s population, who have been under attack since Israel has declared the region ‘ a hostile entity’ in September2007.
As of Sunday, the Israeli army has killed three Palestinians, two of them resistance fighters, during separate attacks on the coastal Strip.
Last week, Israeli attacks on Gaza claimed the lives of 11 Palestinians, including a four-member family; a mother, her two sons and her daughter. Killings by Israeli gunfire and air strikes happen almost on daily basis over the past three months.
A newly-known armed Palestinian group, calling itself the armed wing of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, claimed responsibility last Thursday for firing a rocket on Ashkelon city, 20 kilometers away from Gaza.
Israeli army actions on the ground come as the Gaza’s 1.5-million-strong population suffer from a harsh Israeli closure of Gaza’s border travel and commercial crossings, since June 2007, with a poverty rate of more than 50 percent and the highest records of unemployment.
Gaza’s economy has been, since then, sinking in a large recession, as more than 90 percent of local industrial facilities have been closed, forcing at least 70.000 laborers to stay idle.
The June’s closure came right after the Islamist Hamas movement took over Gaza amidst a power struggle with Fatah party of President Abbas, who has been engaged in renewed peace talks with Israel since December2007..
Hamas, which won January2006’s elections, has shunned peace talks with Israel until Israel stops attacks on the Palestinian people, including lifting Gaza siege, easing movement in the West Bank and freezing construction of new settlements on occupied Palestinian lands.
