Israeli deputy-defense minister, Matan Valnaie, said on Thursday that Israel will be holding Hamas accountable for the yesterday’s cross-border attack by three Palestinian resistance groups.
Valnaie, speaking to the Israeli army radio, stated also that Israel will choose the right time and place for achieving that purpose.
A group of resistance fighters belonging to the Islamic Jihad, the Popular Resistance Committees and the Kata’eb aL-Mojahideen, carried out on Wednesday a cross-border attack on an Israeli fuel terminal in eastern Gaza city, killing two Israelis and wounding four others.
The Israeli official was quoted as saying ‘ if Hamas didn’t want this attack, the attack wouldn’t have broken out’.
Hamas’s spokesperson in Gaza, Fawzi Barhoum, hailed the cross-border attack as ‘ heroic’, and a natural response to the Israeli actions on Gaza, including the siege and daily deadly attacks.
On Wednesday, the Israeli army killed eight Palestinians including a Hamas fighter earlier in the day during an incursion into the southern Gaza town of Qarrara.
Over the past 10 months, the Israeli army has been carrying out a series of actions against the Gaza Strip, including a crippling blockade and deadly attacks, the latest of which was last month’s killing of 120 Palestinians involving 40 children.
The democratically-elected Islamist Hamas party seized control of Gaza in June2007 amidst a power struggle with Fatah party of President Mahmoud Abbas, who continues to hold peace talks with Israel.
