Reoccupation of Gaza won't stop rocket attacks: Israeli army chief

Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Dan Halutz said on Tuesday that he was opposed to reoccupation of the Gaza Strip which Israel quit last September, saying such a move would not necessarily end the Palestinian militant rocket attacks.

"I am not pushing for the occupation of Gaza and I am pushing in the opposite direction," said Halutz in an interview with local daily Ha'aretz.

"I can't recall that in all the years of fighting when we were there that we succeeded in reducing the firing of rockets to zero, " he added.

The price Israel would pay for re-entering the Gaza Strip would be much greater than any success in stopping the rocket attacks, Halutz said, adding that the reoccupation of Gaza would find Israel back in the quagmire.

But the senior Israeli army chief, meanwhile, is in favor of declaring the Palestinian National Authority an enemy and attacking Palestinian targets from a distance, according to the report.

Israel withdrew from the entire Gaza Strip last September after 38 years of occupation there. Since then, Palestinian militants have stepped up firing homemade rockets from northern Gaza into Israel, but the attacks rarely result in Israeli casualties.

Halutz also rejected claims that the pullout from Gaza harmed Israeli security and led to the rise of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) to power.

"I don't think that Hamas came into power because of the disengagement," he said. "The elections, after all, were supposed to have been held in July 2005. Hamas would have received the same results then, perhaps a bit less."

Hamas, which is bent on Israel's destruct, won the January Palestinian legislative elections by a landslide and set up a new government which was sworn in late March.

Meanwhile, Israel Radio reported that a homemade rocket was fired by Palestinian militants at Israel from the northern Gaza Strip on Tuesday morning.

There were no reports of any casualties or damages in the attack.

Source: Xinhua