Israeli volunteers clear debris from a house destroyed by a Kassam rocket fired from Gaza in Sderot, January 4, 2009. Palestinians continued to fire rockets from Gaza as Israeli troops pushed deeper into Gaza. (UPI Photo/Debbie Hill) | License Photo

Palestinian relatives cry during the funeral of five children and their mother (Batran family) killed during Israeli strikes at the Bureij Refugee Camp in southern Gaza city on January 17, 2009. (UPI Photo/Ismael Mohamad) | License Photo

An old Palestinian man sits on rubble of his house that was destroyed in an Israeli air strike in the town of Rafah in southern Gaza on January 18, 2009. (UPI Photo/Ismael Mohamad) | License Photo

Israeli soldiers work on tanks after returning to Israel from the Gaza Strip, January 19, 2009. Israeli officials say they plan to pull all their troops out of Gaza by U.S. President-elect Barack Obama's inauguration on January 20th, but only if Hamas militants hold their fire. (UPI Photo/Debbie Hill) | License Photo

Palestinians look at an unexploded bomb dropped by the Israeli Airforce in Rafah near the Gaza Strip's border with Egypt on January 18, 2009. (UPI Photo/Ismael Mohamad) | License Photo

An Israeli soldier sleeps in a staging area after returning to Israel from the Gaza Strip, January 19, 2009. (UPI Photo/Debbie Hill) | License Photo

JERUSALEM, Jan. 22 (UPI) -- Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Thursday he welcomed the Gaza cease-fire but the future "in a severely uncertain region" was hard to predict.

He said Southern Israel must be kept free of the threat of rocket attacks and he hopes the quiet times will continue but warned that the situation with Hamas was still volatile, the Jerusalem Post reported.


"In this confrontation, at the end of the day," the prime minister said, "we all lose."