Israel has no plan to invade the Gaza Strip in its efforts to end the continuing rocket attacks from the Hamas-ruled enclave, President Shimon Peres said in an interview published Saturday.
"Israel will take all steps demanded of it in order to stop the rocket fire," he told the London-based newspaper Asharq al-Awsat, adding that "We will not go into Gaza. There are other ways. We didn't leave Gaza in order go back."
The remarks came as Israeli airplanes launched simultaneous raids at tens of targets in Gaza, including police and security centers run by Hamas, and reportedly caused casualties, reported Xinhua.
Israeli officials have recently been warning that as Gazan militants continue to rain rockets and mortar shells upon southern Israel, the Jewish state is running out of patience with Hamas, and is ready to take military actions in the strip.
During the interview, Peres also accused Hamas, which Israel blacklists as a terrorist organization, of preventing the establishment of a Palestinian state. "The problem is that Hamas wants to do in the West Bank what they did in Gaza, to start another uprising. That's what scares the Israelis.... Without Hamas, there would've already been a Palestinian state," he was quoted as saying.
While reiterating Israel's hunger for peace, Peres told the newspaper that in his eyes, the Middle East would be vastly different in three years, as the region will "take a turn towards peace."
Israeli pulled out of the Gaza Strip in 2005 after a 38-year occupation, two years before Hamas seized control of the coastal area. Israel has since carried out several Gaza incursions, but all failed to put an end to the barrage, triggering widespread worries that only a reoccupation could blow away the cloud over southern Israel.