A Hamas spokesman praised Tuesday's rocket attack on an Israeli army base, calling it a "victory from God."

"We consider this a victory from God for the resistance," Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said on Hamas radio. "We consider the resistance as the legitimate right of the Palestinians to defend themselves and restore their rights."

The rocket strike, which wounded 69 IDF soldiers, was followed by a mortar barrage on the Gaza border. The Islamic Jihad and the Popular Resistance Committees claimed responsibility for the attacks, and the Islamic Jihad later posted a video on its website purportedly showing the Kassam rocket launch.

Although Hamas was not directly involved, Israel has said it holds the group responsible for attacks out of Gaza because it rules the area.

Although nobody was wounded in the mortar attack, the incident will undoubtedly add to the calls for action, which reached a fever pitch following the earlier Kassam strike.

Yet despite these calls, predictions are that the IDF will still hold back from launching a large-scale operation in the Gaza Strip. According to reports, the hesitancy is in large part due to the upcoming peace summit in Washington, mounting tensions along the northern border, and the fact that Sderot remains largely unprotected.

Defense officials are, however, calling on the political echelon to allow the IDF to deepen their operations in Gaza. At the moment the army is allowed to penetrate up to 2 km into Palestinian territory from the security fence.

Dozens of parents of soldiers serving at the Zikim base arrived there on Thursday to demand that their children be removed from the site. Israel Radio reported a heated exchange between the parents and the commanding officers of the base.

I feel sorry for these parents of non combat soldiers that were injured in this attack as a former combat soldier and the father of a current combat soldier you are in a certain mind set that helps you get ready for the worse, G-D forbid. But these parents thought their children were at a lesser risk and then to get hit with this. I really feel sorry for them.