'We'll take necessary steps to stop rockets'

By HERB KEINON, AP
The Grad Missile attack on the Ashkelon mall on Wednesday is "entirely intolerable and unacceptable," and the government is committed to "stop it" and will "take the necessary steps so that this will stop," Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said just hours after the attack. Olmert made his comments at the opening of a speech he gave in Jerusalem in the presence of US President George W. Bush at a the "Facing Tomorrow" conference on Jerusalem, a gala event marking 60 years of US-Israeli friendship. Even before the attack, during a press statement after meeting with US President George Bush, Olmert said Israel would not be able to "tolerate continuous attacks on innocent civilians." "We hope that we will not have to act against Hamas in other ways with the military power that Israel hasn't yet started to use in a serious manner in order to stop it," Olmert warned. Speaking at the same conference, President Shimon Peres said Islamist extremists are trying to destroy Lebanon and Gaza, "but it won't work in Israel. They won't succeed in destroying Israel."