Israel to 'target those firing rockets'

From Nine News, Monday Feb 11:

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert threatened to target all those behind cross-border rocket attacks from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, but warned against a knee-jerk Israeli military response.

Olmert has been wary of launching a large-scale ground operation in the densely populated coastal territory that could result in heavy Israeli as well as Palestinian casualties.

But he is under mounting domestic pressure to do more to counter the rocket fire, which seriously wounded two Israelis, including an eight-year-old boy, in the southern Israeli town of Sderot.

Part of the boy's leg was amputated.

...The prime minister vowed to target "all terror elements" in the Gaza Strip - both those directly responsible for the rocket attacks and those who help organise them. "We will not give special consideration to anyone," Olmert said, the strongest hint yet that Israel could start assassinating political leaders of the Hamas movement, which seized control of the Gaza Strip in June after routing Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's secular Fatah forces.

....Gaza militants frequently fire short-range rockets and mortars at towns in southern Israel ..... [Foreign Minister Tzipi] Livni appeared to be preparing the ground internationally for a stepped up Israeli military campaign to stop the rockets. "There is a need for the international community to understand that there are certain steps that Israel needs to take in order to stop it," Livni said of the cross-border attacks. "Israel, according to international law, has the right and the duty to defend its citizens."

Olmert's top deputy, Vice Premier Haim Ramon, said Israel should respond to the attacks by "raining fire" down on specific areas in the Gaza Strip where the rockets were launched.
Cabinet Minister Meir Sheetrit said Israel should let residents in those areas leave and then "demolish everything".

Ramon, Sheetrit and Cabinet Minister Zeev Boim said anyone involved in the rocket attacks, either directly or indirectly, should be targeted for assassination. Sheetrit singled out Ismail Haniyeh, prime minister of Hamas's government in the Gaza Strip, as a "legitimate target".
Israel assassinated top Hamas leaders Ahmed Yassin and Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi in the Gaza Strip in 2004.....