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As Mark Regev, a spokesman for the Israeli Foreign Ministry, told United Press International later that night, by acting firm in Jericho was Israel's way of sending a message to Hamas that they could not pick and choose which agreements to respect and which to ignore among those previously reached between the Jewish state and the Palestinian Authority.

So yes, with uncertainty regarding how Hamas will choose to act, security remains the primary issue for Israelis in this election, more so than before.

Security -- or rather at times the lack of it -- helped shape this campaign from the very beginning, starting with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon slamming the door on Likud, a party he helped found. Sharon's dispute with Likud arose when he clashed with the party leadership over his decision to have Israel unilaterally withdraw from the entire Gaza Strip and a couple of West Bank settlements. The more hawkish elements in the party, led by former Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, opposed a withdrawal from the occupied territories.

In typical Sharon fashion, the prime minister walked away from Likud and started his own party, Kadima, or Forward. But soon after, almost like a page taken out of a Greek tragedy, Sharon suffered a stroke and fell into a coma. And as the country headed to vote, Sharon, the warrior-turned-politician, whose often unorthodox actions in defense of Israel at times raised controversy, remained unconscious in a hospital bed, probably never to regain consciousness again. Certainly never to find out if the party he created was victorious or not.

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