Former Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon. Photo: Mueller / MSC via Wikimedia Commons.

Israel should adopt an eye-for-an-eye strategy when it comes to dealing with the flammable objects that terrorists in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip have been sending across the border in recent months, an ex-Israeli defense minister told the Hebrew news site Walla on Thursday.

“From the moment this started small, they should have paid a heavy price,” Moshe Ya’alon — a former Likud MK who plans to return to politics in the future with a yet-to-be-determined party — said. “They burn us, so things should also burn for them. We should have long ago made them pay a price.”

Since April, kite bombs and incendiary balloons have caused extensive damage to agricultural fields and forests in southern Israel.

According to Ya’alon, there is no military solution that could solve the Gaza problem all at once.

“The policy should be such that the Palestinians understand they have their own autonomy,” he said.

The humanitarian situation in Gaza, in Ya’alon’s view, should be managed with a carrot-and-stick approach.

“We’re maneuvering to avoid reaching a crisis,” he said. “The responsibility belongs to Hamas, not us. There is no blockade, there is a security closure that has to be maintained. Hamas proves what we are supposed to understand. It is not interested in the 1967 lines, but rather Tel Aviv, Ashkelon and the ‘right of return.’ We must explain this to the world.”