PM: Killing PRC leadership only first response to attacks
LAST UPDATED: 08/19/2011 19:25
Netanyahu visits wounded soldiers in hospital, says "we have a policy of making anyone who attacks us pay dearly for it."
Prime Minister Netanyahu visits wounded soldier Photo: Moshe Milnr / GPO
Prime
Minister Binyamin Netanyahu visited injured soldiers at Soroka
University Medical Center in Beersheba Friday, where he said that the
killing of the PRC
leadership in Gaza was only Israel's first response to the terror attack
that killed eight people near Eilat on Thursday, a PMO spokesman said.
"Killing
the leaders of the terrorist organization responsible for yesterday's
attacks was just our initial response," Netanyahu said during the visit.
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"We have a policy of making anyone who attacks us pay dearly for it," he added. "We are implementing this policy in the field."
On Thursday, Netanyahu said, “We all witnessed today an attempt to escalate the terrorist war against Israel by launching of attacks from the Sinai. If there is someone who thinks that the State of Israel will let this pass, he is mistaken.”
He continued: “I have set out a principle – when the citizens of Israel are attacked, we respond immediately and with strength. That principle was implemented today. Those who gave the order to murder our citizens, while hiding in Gaza, are no longer among the living.”
Netanyahu commended the IDF and security services for their swift retaliation against the senior terrorist officials in Gaza, thereby preventing an even greater tragedy.
“If the terrorist organizations believe that they can attack our citizens and get away with it, they will soon learn how wrong they are. We will exact a price, a very heavy price,” he said.
The PRC members killed in the retaliatory IAF air strike included the
head of the terror group Kamal Nirab, who the Shin Bet (Israel Security
Agency) said had personally directed and planned the attack.
Another man killed in the strike was identified as Amas Hamed, commander
of the PRC’s military wing and a resident of Rafah. The Shin Bet said
that Hamed was involved in the abduction of IDF soldier Gilad Schalit in
June 2006 and oversaw numerous attacks against Israel including suicide
bombings and rocket attacks.
Two other known PRC terrorists, including one who was also involved in Schalit’s abduction, were also killed in the air strike.
“The terrorists were directly involved in the attacks along the Israeli-Egyptian border,” a security official said.
The PRC has denied any involvement in the attack, the group told AFP on Friday.
A PRC spokesman praised the attack, but said his group doesn't claim
responsibility for launching it. "The occupation wants to pin this
operation on us in order to escape its own internal problems," he said,
according to AFP.
Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Thursday that the IDF would escalate
its response to the attacks. Egypt had lost its grip over Sinai
Peninsula and terrorist organizations were able to move around there
freely, he said.
“The IDF has already struck the heads of the PRC in Gaza and if there
will be a need, the strikes will intensify,” Barak said. “The IDF will
use all of the force necessary to protect Israel’s citizens and to
enable a normal way of life in the country.”