Benny Gantz: Renew assassination policy in response to rocket fire

Blue and White leader Benny Gantz hit out strongly at the interim government for what he described as its inaction over repeated incidents of rocket fire from Gaza against southern Israel after a barrage of rockets was fired from Gaza by a terror group Friday night.Gantz also implied that he would renew Israel’s former policy of assassinations against the senior terrorist leaders should he become prime minister.“A government which I head will not tolerate a threat against southern residents, and will not accept any injury to Israeli sovereignty,” Gantz said in a tweet Saturday night.“We will restore deterrence at any price, even if we need to harm those personally who are leading the escalation,” said Gantz in seeming reference to the heads of the various Gazan terrorist groups.“At this time, we will support and back any policy of determined and responsible response [to the rocket attacks] in order to bring long-term quiet to southern residents. This is our obligation and our commitment to them,” the Blue and White leader said.Yisrael Beytenu leader and former Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman denounced what he described as “a policy of surrender by the government to the terrorist organizations in Gaza,” which he said resulted in incidents like Friday night’s rocket barrage.“Riots on the [Gaza border] fence have turned into something routine on Friday afternoon… Someone who tolerates riots and disorder on Friday afternoon will get rockets on Friday night. But don’t worry. The prime minister’s response is on the way. Next week already dozens of millions of dollars will be transferred to the heads of Hamas,” Liberman railed, in reference to the cash payments from Qatar to Gaza, facilitated by Israel.New Right co-founder MK Naftali Bennett said that Israel was in a “national crisis” following the rocket fire and that a wide-scale military operation in Gaza would soon be needed.“It won’t be possible for long the root-treatment needed in Gaza, at the same time as curbing the encirclement of Iran’s missiles around Israel,” said Bennett.“Israel cannot have a third round of election which will silence us and prevent urgent security and civilian actions. Everyone, Netanyahu and Gantz as one, must compromise and establish a government immediately,” he continued in reference to the current stalemate in the establishment of a coalition government following September’s election.