The most basic responsibility of a government is to protect its citizens. The Olmert government is not fulfilling this responsibility.

This week, a woman was killed and a man lost his legs when Kassam rockets landed in downtown Sderot. The Islamic Jihad and Iz A-Din El-Kassam terrorists proudly claimed credit.

Fatima Slutzker, a Muslim woman married to a Jew, was the seventh fatal victim of a Kassam rocket among the nearly 1,700 that have been fired since the withdrawal from Gaza. She was 57 years-old.

The rockets fell not far from the house of former Sderot Mayor Amir Peretz, now Israel's defense minister. Maor (ben Dorit) Peretz, the 24-year-old guard assigned to protect Peretz's house was also hit by the rocket's wildly-scattered deadly shrapnel.

Both Fatima and Maor were taken to Barzilai Hospital in Ashkelon, where the woman died, leaving behind her husband and two sons. Peretz had both of his legs amputated. Six other people were treated for light injuries.

Close to ten Kassams were fired at Sderot on Wednesday. In addition, four other rockets were fired at the western Negev. Another rocket landed near a children's nursery in a kibbutz.

The nearly 1,700 Kassams were not an accident. They were meant to kill, and when they did kill Jews, the Arabs celebrated. No apologies forthcoming from them. However, when an Israeli artillery shell accidentally strayed 500 meters off course, killing 19 and wounding 29 others in Beit Hanoun, senior Fatah officials called for sanctions from the UN Security Council and incited the Arab populace to increase terror attacks on Israeli civilians. Israel's wimpy Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, on the other hand, publicly apologized to the entire world for the IDF's accidental firing, giving the Arabs additional propaganda ammunition.

There is currently an intense debate about whether Israel should re-conquer Gaza to stop the Kassams. The journalist Haggai Huberman wrote an excellent article in the Hebrew newspaper HaTzofeh. The following are excerpts from this article:

One of the lies spread by spokesmen in the government in particular, and by the Left in general, is, "And when we sat in Gaza, there were no Kassams?" The answer is simple: "No!" When we sat in Gaza, there were no Kassams.

We left Gaza (and other places from where they are sending Kassams, like Beit Hanoun, Mejabliya, etc., in 1994 because of the Oslo agreements). Before 1994 (when the IDF controlled Gaza), there were no Kassams. Not on Sderot, not on Miflasim, not on Nahal Oz.

Another famous sentence uttered these days by the Left is: "We tried everything already." No! That is not true. It is true that we tried everything except the one and only thing that will stop the rockets: complete re-conquest of the entire Gaza Strip. Complete IDF security control in each and every corner.

And thus, we will repeat it ad nauseam: there is only one way to stop the rocket attacks - to re-conquer Gaza and stay there. It will happen sooner or later. Even Yuval Diskin, General Security Service Chief, and Avi Dichter, Internal Security Minister, already understand this.

Member of Knesset Tzvi Hendel (National Union), commenting on the government's refusal to send massive forces to enter Gaza, said bitterly, "Only a rocket on Tel Aviv will cause Olmert to take over Gaza."

MK Hendel is wrong. A rocket on Tel Aviv will not make Olmert send forces to take over Gaza. Only a direct hit by a rocket on Prime Minister Olmert's residence in Jerusalem would accomplish that.