News Brief

(IsraelNN.com) Labor Knesset Member and former Defense Minister Binyamin (Fuad) Ben Eliezer said Thursday morning that the IDF can eliminate the terror rockets from Gaza – but that the question of whether Israel would elect to do so is another matter entirely. Speaking in an interview on Voice of Israel government radio about Wednesday's Grad missile attack on the Chutzot mall in Ashkelon, Ben Eliezer said, "Of course my heart is with the mother and child who were injured in the attack and all the other victims."

When asked how long the government would allow the situation to continue, however, Ben Eliezer said the situation was not simple.  "There would be nothing easier than to end the terrorism from Gaza – but we as Jews take more moral responsibility and therefore exercise more self-restraint than any other nation in the world."

Close to a hundred people were wounded in Wednesday's attack. The 24-year-old mother and her 18-month-old baby daughter were flown to Tel HaShomer Hospital in Tel Aviv with severe head injuries. Two other critically wounded victims, including the doctor who was treating the baby in the shopping center's medical clinic at the time, are in stable condition at Barzilai Hospital in Ashkelon.