Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman toured the Israel-Gaza Strip border on Tuesday and visited the site where four soldiers were wounded on Saturday by a bomb attached to the security fence.
Lieberman said all signs point to Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, as being behind the attack and vowed the Islamist terrorist group would be made to pay for it.
"It is clear that Hamas was behind the event, which obviously has consequences and implications," he said.
He criticized Hamas for "using the residents of Gaza as ammunition," saying, "When Hamas sends civilians to clash with IDF soldiers on the [border] fence it knows the price entailed.
"Hamas is also using civilians to carry out terrorist attacks during the demonstrations. We find that reprehensible, and we won't be party to this game. Hamas' leaders, who lack for nothing, don't send their relatives to clash with IDF soldiers, they send the most impoverished people to do it. That speaks to their [Hamas leaders'] character.
"Terrorism and poverty go hand in hand. Hamas is preventing economic growth in Gaza. It can only recruit terrorists and suicide bombers via poverty and despair, so Hamas is doing all it can to maintain poverty and despair."
GOC Southern Command Maj. Gen. Eyal Zamir accompanied Lieberman on his tour and briefed him on recent developments.
After the tour, Lieberman visited the wounded soldiers at Soroka University Medical Center in Beersheba.
"The IDF will settle the score with the perpetrators and their dispatchers," he promised them.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday dedicated the new fortified emergency room at Barzilai Medical Center in Ashkelon, and said that while Israel has "no desire to undermine the daily routine" of Gaza's residents, "they must know that it is not Israel which is responsible for their plight, it is the extremists leading Gaza who are responsible."
Netanyahu stressed that Israel "will not ignore the attempts to violate our sovereignty or harm our soldiers and residents and we have proved this time and again. Any act of aggression by the terrorist elements will be met with a strong and determined response on our part. We will not accept sporadic rocket fire or explosives on the border fence, such as we saw last weekend."
