Israel's outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert urged in an interview published on Thursday the residents of Gaza Strip to stop the Hamas rulers from firing rockets and mortars into Israel. "I say to you in a last-minute call, stop it," Olmert said in an interview with the Arab television station Al-Arabiya.
"Don't let Hamas, which is acting against the values of Islam, put you in danger," he said. "Stop them. Stop your enemies and ours. Tell them to stop firing on innocent civilians."
"I know how much you want to get up in the morning to quiet, to take your children to kindergarten or school, the way we do, the way they want to in Sderot and Netivot," he said.
"We want to live as good neighbours with Gaza," he said. "We don't want to harm you, and we will not allow a humanitarian crisis where you will suffer from a lack of food and medicine. We don't want to fight with the Palestinian people, but we will not allow Hamas to strike our children."
