A cease-fire may have gone into effect in Gaza last week, but that doesn't seem to have stopped the Palestinians from continuing to attack Israeli towns and cities.

Just this morning, Palestinian terrorists fired yet another Qassam rocket into southern Israel. The projectile hit an open field next to a kibbutz, but thank G-d no one was injured in the attack.

This is the 15th rocket that the Palestinians have launched at Israel since the start of the cease-fire, and yet the government continues to refrain from going into Gaza to halt the assaults.

Speaking at the weekly cabinet meeting this morning, Defense Minister Amir Peretz said that the Palestinians are "partially keeping" the cease-fire - I guess he means the "fire" part, because they have certainly been ignoring the "cease".

In any event, the ongoing rocket attacks demonstrate once again the futility of relying on wishful thinking in the formulation of Israeli defense policy.

Hoping that the Palestinians will stick to the cease-fire, despite their track record of violating every previous one, was both fool-hardy and dangerous, and it has now left Israel with its hands tied diplomatically behind its back.

Indeed, how many more rockets will it take for our leadership to realize that the only way to stem the violence is to hunt down its perpetrators, rather than negotiate with them?