Netanyahu warns Hamas of ‘surprise of their lives’ if balloon attacks don’t stop

If the attacks don’t stop, he warned in a Channel 20 interview, “it’s just a matter of time until we will activate that surprise.”

By World Israel News Staff 

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Hamas on Tuesday that Israel is “preparing” an attack on the terror group that would be “the surprise of their lives if they don’t come to their senses” and stop the launching of booby-trapped balloons from the Gaza Strip.

Massive numbers of balloons laden with explosives have been dispatched across the border over the past several weeks after a relative lull. In the past, Israeli farms have been set on fire from these explosives. Children have been warned against approaching the balloons at the risk of injury or death.

“I do not rush to make war,” said the Israeli premier in an interview with Israel’s Channel 20, but if the attacks don’t stop, he warned, “it’s just a matter of time until we will activate that surprise. I will not reveal it here but it’s different from anything that came before and remember everything that I said.”

Asked by an interviewer whether such an Israeli military action could come soon, Netanyahu replied: “It depends on them.”

Brushing off accusations in political circles that his tough talk was aimed at winning votes in the March 2 Knesset election, the prime minister said that he would “certainly not coordinate [an unprecedented attack] with the matter of elections. That’s not the issue.”

He pledged that “before I send our soldiers… our children into the line of fire and the battle, I want to exhaust all the possibilities” and would act militarily only if “there is no choice.”