Israel decided to stick to its current tactics against Palestinian rocket salvoes from the Gaza Strip.
Jolted by an Islamic Jihad rocket that nearly struck a day-care center in the southern Israeli town of Sderot, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert convened his Security Cabinet on Wednesday to hear proposals for retaliation.
The ministers decided against a major military sweep of Gaza given the potential cost in terms of casualties. Instead the armed forces were given a green light to continue pre-emptive strikes against Palestinian terrorist leaders.
Israel is also weighing punitive cutoffs of electrity or water to Gaza.
“The security establishment, in cooperation with the Foreign Ministry and the relevant legal bodies, has been instructed to prepare a plan – taking all military and civil considerations into account – to disrupt the services that the State of Israel provides to the Gaza Strip in response to the continued criminal and indiscriminate attacks against the Israeli civilian population,” Olmert’s office said in a statement.
