IDF: Airstrike hits Palestinian road

Israel & Palestine Forum

This is all that is being reported at the moment, more to come...

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This is what has immediately led up to this attack:

PRC: Israeli soldier in 'secure place'

By STEVEN GUTKIN, Associated Press Writer
59 minutes ago

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - A Palestinian militant group said Tuesday an abducted Israeli soldier was alive in a "secure place," as thousands of Israeli and Egyptian troops massed along the borders with Gaza in anticipation of an Israeli invasion.

Negotiators from the ruling Hamas movement, trying to defuse building tensions, said they had accepted a document implicitly recognizing Israel. But two Syrian-based Hamas leaders denied a final deal had been reached.

Israel said only freedom for the captive soldier, Cpl. Gilad Shalit, could defuse the crisis, not a political agreement.

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev said Tuesday's agreement between Hamas and the Fatah Party of President Mahmoud Abbas was a "non-starter" because it failed to meet international demands.

Regev said Hamas leaders "should have been trying to orchestrate the release of Cpl. Shalit" rather than "devoting time and energy to other matters of no real significance."

Shalit's abduction Sunday by Hamas' military wing and two other Hamas-linked groups has threatened to turn already devastated relations between Israel and the Hamas-led government into an all-out war. Hamas took over the Palestinian Authority after winning parliamentary elections in January, and has been under international pressure to renounce violence and recognize Israel.

White House press secretary Tony Snow said he had only seen media accounts of the Hamas-Fatah accord, but reiterated that Hamas had to meet three conditions before a crippling aid boycott could be lifted.

"Once again, we can all recite from memory now: recognize Israel's right to exist, renounce terror, and abide by all past agreements. Those are the preconditions," Snow said in Washington.

On a flight to Pakistan, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urged Israel to "give diplomacy a chance."

Complicating matters was a new claim by the Hamas-linked Popular Resistance Committees, one of the three groups that carried out Sunday's assault, that it had also kidnapped a Jewish settler in the West Bank.

Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said the report was being taken "very seriously," and military officials said there was "rising fears" the claim was true.

The fate of the 19-year-old captive soldier has riveted Israelis, with Shalit's face plastered on newspapers and callers to talk shows praying for his safety.

In an interview Tuesday with The Associated Press, Noam Shalit begged the captors of his wounded son's to provide medical care and asked "to hear his voice and to see his face."

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert rejected the kidnappers' demands to free Palestinian prisoners and instead approved plans for a military push into Gaza. About 3,000 soldiers, along with tanks and armored vehicles, massed along Israel's border with the territory, and commanders said they were awaiting orders to move in.

Hamas' Web site said there were "back channel" negotiations with Israel over a prisoner release.

Israeli military officials said a negotiating team has been activated, but declined to release further information.

The kidnappers did not say where Shalit was being held or release any photos of him. Israeli officials said they believed the soldier suffered light wounds to his stomach and was being held in southern Gaza.

On Tuesday, for the first time since Sunday's assault, in which two Israeli soldiers and two militants were killed, militants acknowledged they were holding Shalit and said he was alive.

"The soldier is in a secure place that the Zionists cannot reach," said Mohammed Abdel Al, spokesman for the Popular Resistance Committees. He said his group also took a West Bank settler hostage.

Mohammad Nazal, a Damascus-based member of the Hamas politburo, said the militant group would not agree to free the Israeli soldier "without a deal."

"No release without something in return," he told AP. "This is the popular demand and we cannot let down our people."

Israel's Channel 2 TV reported that international mediators involved in talks with the kidnappers had given up, saying negotiations were going nowhere. An Egyptian official concurred that talks with Hamas officials in Gaza were "on hold," but insisted negotiations were still taking place with Hamas leaders in Syria.

Egyptian officials said their government asked Hamas to release the soldier and deployed 2,500 extra soldiers along the border with Gaza to prevent an influx of Palestinians if Israel invaded. Egypt also imposed a nighttime curfew on residents along the border.

Egypt's intelligence chief, Omar Suleiman, urged Hamas' Syria-based leader, Khaled Mashaal, to push for Shalit's release, the officials said on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation.

Shalit's abduction has exposed rifts between Hamas hard-liners such as Mashaal and its local leadership in Gaza, which has shown a greater willingness to compromise.

Israel has clamped a tight closure on Gaza that prevents merchants from leaving and fishermen from sailing off the Mediterranean coast, the army said. It also closed all crossings into Gaza.

Hundreds of Palestinians were stranded on the Egyptian side of the border at the Rafah crossing, said the director of security at the Palestinian crossings, Salim Abu Safiah.

Anticipating an invasion, Palestinian militants piled up sand on roads near the border and in Gaza City.

"They have to think a thousand times before committing any stupid acts and going forward with steps that will lead them to hell," Hamas' military wing said in a statement.

Abbas, a moderate, has been trying to coax Hamas into endorsing a document that calls for a Palestinian state alongside Israel, in effect recognizing the Jewish state. He said the proposal, put forth by Palestinians jailed by Israel, could help end Western and Israeli sanctions and pave the way to reopening peace talks.

"We have an agreement over the document," said Ibrahim Abu Najah, coordinator of the "national dialogue" over the proposal.

Fatah and Hamas negotiators in Gaza said they had reached agreement in which all parties accepted the document, calling the deal a breakthrough. But exiled Hamas leaders in Syria said the deal was not complete.

"Dialogue achieved major progress, and we hope within the next few days we will reach agreement on a joint agenda, but not today," Moussa Abu Marzouk, a top Hamas official, said in Damascus.

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Here's the story:

IDF: Airstrike hits Palestinian road
Olmert warns of 'extended campaign' unless soldier freed

JERUSALEM (CNN) -- Israeli aircraft struck a roadway used by Palestinian militants to fire rockets into Israel, the Israel Defense Forces said, but it added land units had not crossed into Gaza.

Israeli troops and tanks have massed along the Gaza border after Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Tuesday threatened an "extended campaign" against Palestinian leaders unless a kidnapped soldier is released.

"All targets" would be considered for possible action, Olmert told Israel's parliament, the day after ruling out any deals with militants for the return of 19-year-old Cpl. Gilad Shalit.

"We would not make compromises with terror. We would not hold negotiation with [terror]," Olmert told the Knesset amid the escalating crisis.

"No terrorist would be immune."

Israel has slapped a land and sea blockade on Gaza, cutting off people's movements and shipments of fuel and food, nine months after returning control of the territory to the Palestinians. (Watch tanks mass as tensions run high -- 2:27)

Inside Gaza, Palestinians have dumped piles of sand on major roads, intended to slow any advance of Israeli tanks and armor and provide cover for gunmen.

Israel says it is holding the Palestinian Authority responsible for the safety of Shalit, who was captured Sunday by Palestinian militants at a guard post inside Israel.

Olmert said he did not want to hurt innocents, but a senior Israeli Cabinet minister, Haim Ramon, told Army Radio that might be inevitable, in an interview quoted by The Associated Press.

"We will not hold back on our efforts, and to our great sorrow, part of this price will be paid by the residents of the Gaza Strip," Ramon said.

"This strike will come, and it will be very painful. In order to stop this, I call on authorities in the Palestinian Authority to do all they can to bring Gilad home."

Israeli leaders said Hamas officials, including political leader Khaled Meshaal, who is in exile in Syria, could be targets of Israeli military action.

Aides said Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniya were directly involved in negotiations to free Shalit.

The Palestinian factions Fatah, headed by Abbas, and Haniya's Hamas, have pleaded with Israel to hold off on any military action, saying an offensive would only complicate efforts to end the crisis.

Palestinian leaders have also said they fear Israel will not stop at freeing Shalit but will also go after Palestinian militants who have fired hundreds of crude Qassam rockets into Israel in recent months.

Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres recognized a split between the politicians and the militants, saying Meshaal was behind the kidnapping and "wants to destroy any chance for peace." (Watch Peres' take on the escalating border tensions -- 6:27)

"All this was done against, maybe, the better judgment of the Palestinian leaders on the ground. The orders came from Syria. They came from a gentleman who wants to destroy any chance for peace," Peres said.

Meshaal, the head of the Hamas political office, lives in exile in Damascus.

"A small group of terrible people sitting in Damascus," Peres said, was mobilizing "the whole world against the Palestinians," who he said were the real victims of the kidnapping.

Peres said Israel believes that Shalit, who holds dual Israeli-French citizenship, is "alive and healthy."

Another teenager reported missing
In another development, the Popular Resistance Committees, one of the Palestinian militant groups that says it is holding Shalit, said it also was holding an Israeli settler in the West Bank.

Israeli police said a family in the settlement of Itamar near Nablus had filed a missing persons report. The missing settler was identified as Eliyahu Asheri, 18.

He was last seen Sunday night at the French Hill hitchhiking post in Jerusalem, on the road leading north to the West Bank. His parents reported him missing at noon Monday.

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Since CNN and AP are reporting different things, I changed the thread title to go along with the more complete story at CNN. More to follow.

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I have seen the pictures of the tanks and trrops ready to go in to Gaza and in truth I think it is not a smart move by Israel. If you want to get a capture soldier back you only send in heavy artillery in as a last resort this would have been better achieed by secret service, special forces or R&R units do it under stealth and they boy migh survive. Does anyone actually think that the minute the tansk get to close this kid is not going to get a bullet in the head? The weird thing is that his comanding officer must know that so why do it?

And get your man killed in the process, real good idea. Do you seriously thing that this will stop Hamas or the other groups knowing the way these idiots think it will only stregthen thier will to harm Israel especially if innocent Palestinians are killed.

It honestly looks like Israel is ready to really throw down here.

Wel get set for the long haul because histroy tells us that when you kill one terrorist you normaly get 2 new recruits. In the case of Gaza you will probably get 3 or 4 let's be honets if an army came into your city smashing up the place and possibly killing innocents for whatever reason would up arms and take them on or hide in a corner with rest of the ladies.

Well I stood up and started fighting. This whole thing it goes both ways. Just like not all Israellis are involved in this operation not all Palestines are invoved in this kidnapping. It's the young Palestines who keep heraing Israel is bad and a menace they are the ones that will believe this and take up arms and fight.

Ok, wierdest part of this whole thing IMO is that no one has been reported killed yet. That'll change, but that's so odd.