Israel Warns Gaza on Any Future Attacks

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Israel Warns Gaza on Any Future Attacks
Associated Press
AMY TEIBEL
September 10, 2005

Israel threatened Saturday to deliver an unprecedentedly harsh response to any attacks from Gaza after Israeli troops quit the territory next week and hand it over to the Palestinians.

Egypt, meanwhile, deployed the first of 750 soldiers assigned to police the volatile Gaza border to prevent arms smuggling and illicit crossings after the Israelis end their 38-year occupation.

"An hour after we leave the field, there will be a strategic change ... in the nature of our response to even an attempt at terror," Maj. Gen. Yisrael Ziv, the military's chief of operations, told Israel Radio. "We shall have a far more extreme reaction to any attempt."

While Israel has in the past used airstrikes and tank assaults against militants, it declared a policy of relative restraint after a February cease-fire.

The last Israeli soldiers will leave Gaza on Monday, or a day later if the Israeli Cabinet decides to raze more than two dozen synagogues still standing in demolished settlements. The Cabinet is to vote on the emotionally charged matter Sunday.

Already rampant lawlessness in Gaza is expected to intensify after the pullout as Palestinian factions fight for control of the area.

In the latest sign of chaos, masked gunmen abducted Italian journalist Lorenzo Cremonesi of the Corriere della Sera daily in the Gaza town of Deir El-Balah, but released him unharmed about four hours later, Palestinian officials said.

Palestinian security officials said the kidnappers were among the 60 armed Palestinians who earlier in the day occupied the local governor's headquarters and Interior Ministry offices in the town, demanding jobs with the Palestinian Authority. They took Cremonesi in an attempt to bolster their claims, the officials said.

In Gaza City, three gunmen opened fire from their car at the Interior Ministry press office, touching off a brief gunbattle with the building's guards. No one was injured and the gunmen escaped, the ministry said in a statement.

"There are many elements and many parties who are interested in preserving the chaos, because they cannot live under law and order," ministry spokesman Tawfiq Abu Khoussa said in the statement.

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