"Am I therefore become your enemy,because I TELL YOU THE TRUTH...?"
(Galatians 4:16)

Ehud Olmert: 'We are at war with Hamas'

The Israeli prime minister yesterday described worsening clashes with Hamas militants as "a war".The comments by Ehud Olmert reflected a sense of national anger at repeated rocket attacks launched from the Gaza Strip.Mr Olmert said: "A war is going on in the south, every day, every night." Palestinian moderates then raised the stakes when the spokesman for Mahmoud Abbas, the Fatah leader conducting talks with Israel, said peace negotiations could collapse if the clashes continue.On the Gaza perimeter yesterday rockets were fired repeatedly, forcing thousands of Israelis into shelters.Israeli forces, including helicopters, pounded any militants suspected of involvement in the rocket fire.A man and his wife were killed when their car was hit by a missile. A second strike targeted a car carrying members of the radical Islamic Jihad movement, killing two of them. The blast also hit a nearby cart, killing the woman driver and seriously wounding her passenger, a child.No Israelis have died in several days of sustained attacks, in contrast to more than 20 Palestinians killed, including at least six civilians.An Ecuadorean worker on a kibbutz died earlier this week in the attack that sparked a major retaliatory operation by the Israeli military.Mr Olmert said: "We cannot and will not tolerate this unceasing fire at Israeli citizens... so we will continue to operate, with wisdom and daring, with the maximum precision that will enable us to hit those who want to attack us.He said that "this war will not stop" until Israeli forces "tip the scales" and force a halt to rocket fire.Mr Abbas's spokesman called on America to intervene.

As in the days of Noah....