Chairman Avigdor Liberman of the Yisrael Beytenu Party has responded to intelligence assessments that Hamas was preparing for an imminent confrontation with Israel by saying, "The next confrontation must be the last confrontation."
The former defense minister explained, "We must strike a hard and disproportionate blow on Hamas, to completely break their will to continue fighting against us and also to destroy their belief that they will ever be able to defeat us. Without such a blow, the imminent confrontation with the Gaza Strip will only be an interim stage for future confrontations."