Olmert reluctantly calls cabinet session Wednesday amid pressing demands for broad military action to stamp out missile threat from Gaza

Following a seven-Qassam barrage on Sderot’s schools Monday, several ministers have added their voices to opposition demands to send the army in against “Iran’s forward position” in Gaza. Opposition leader Binyamin Netanyahu: It is way past time for a large-scale military operation. “If the government cannot provide security for citizens, then it should quit.” Sderot’s high school pupils are parked Tuesday, Sept. 4, outside the Knesset in Jerusalem, to emphasize the town’s call for military action to stop the Palestinian missiles flying against Sderot for seven years. The rest of the schools will join the protest Wednesday, closing down the school year two days before it opened. Parents brushed aside prime minister Ehud Olmert’s vow to “hit ever Gazan missile launcher” as empty rhetoric which means the IDF will continue to be confined to its present ineffectual tactics against the terrorist groups in Gaza. It is up to the state to take offensive action and provide permanent schooling outside missile range from Gaza. Until it does, there will be no classes in Sderot, they say.
debkafile: They are up against the prime minister’s determination to withhold effective action for protecting Sderot and its neighboring communities that may upset his dialogue with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas – at least until the regional Middle East conference called by Washington for November is over.