Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said terrorists in the Gaza Strip are in for a “big surprise” unless they reduce violence in the region.
The comments come on the same day as reports that Israel was planning to kill two senior members of Hamas, including its leader in the Gaza Strip and the military wing of the terrorist group, according to the Times of Israel.
“Hamas and the other terrorist organizations such as Islamic Jihad, whose commander we eliminated a few weeks ago, have to understand that either there is complete quiet and they rein in the rogue factions — shoot them in the knees, that’s the way — or we will have no choice but to launch our operational programs,” Netanyahu said.
“I can’t share what they are, but I can say it will be a big surprise,” he added.
Given that the March 2 election is approaching, the prime minister said military decisions in Gaza would not be subject to “political timetables,” and he would “choose the right time to take action.”
Netanyahu said in another interview that he does not want to rush into war, but Israel is nevertheless “preparing for Hamas the surprise of their lives.”
“I won’t say what it is, but it will be different from anything that came before,” he said.
On Tuesday, it was reported an Egyptian delegation dissuaded Israel from carrying out a targeted killing of Yahya Sinwar, a Hamas leader in Gaza, and Marwan Issa, the leader of Hamas’s military wing.
After the commander of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s military wing, Baha Abu al Ata, was killed in November, militants retaliated by firing hundreds of rockets into southern Israel. Netanyahu was rushed out of a campaign event in Ashkelon in December when rockets were fired from the nearby Gaza Strip.
Recently, terrorists in Gaza tethered the warheads of rocket-powered grenade launchers onto helium balloons and flew them across southern Israel.
