During a tour of Sderot on Sunday, Likud chairman Binyamin Netanyahu said, "We'll give our full support to the government if it moves towards active policy against Hamas in Gaza."
"Residents of Israel can't count on miracles," he continued. "Kadima ministers are responsible for the fact that the truce enabled Hamas to rearm with weapons that can reach Ashdod and Beersheba."
"There's a full range of actions that can be carried out between not doing anything, like the government is doing now, and occupying the Gaza Strip," he added.
The opposition leader went on to echo a statement his party released earlier in the day which charged that rival party Kadima was responsible for continued rocket fire on the western Negev, also blaming them for withdrawing from Gaza in 2005.
"[Foreign Minister] Tzipi Livni and the Kadima ministers are trying to shirk their responsibility with all sorts of fiery declarations, but they're responsible for the unilateral disengagement which created a terror state in Gaza," he said.
"For three years, Kadima ministers have twiddled their thumbs and buried their heads in the sand, and the time has come to change that," he adding, stressing that "government ministers should stop attacking each other and start attacking Hamas."
The earlier Likud statement had asserted that "Israelis are now eating the rotten fruits of the political blindness of Livni and [Prime Minister Ehud] Olmert."
"Contrary to [Livni and Olmert], [Likud leader Binyamin] Netanyahu and the Likud believe terrorist bases must not be established in Jerusalem, or in Judea and Samaria, and that Hamas's control of Gaza must be overthrown," the Likud statement added.