Israel’s assault on the Gaza Strip launched on Wednesday in a bid to free a kidnapped soldier could escalate into a wider conflict, observers warned.
The crisis has saddled Prime Minister Ehud Olmert with the severest test of his premiership, but as dozens of tanks and troops poured into the southern Gaza Strip, officials were unable to say how or when the operation would end.
”We decided to use extreme means to bring Gilad [Shalit] home and we have no intention of reoccupying the Gaza Strip,” Olmert was quoted as saying by public radio, referring to the corporal snatched in a raid on an Israeli post on Sunday.
The incursion into the territory, which Israel quit in September after 38 years of occupation, was forced upon Israel which ”will now have to act on its own to bring about his liberation,” Defence Minister Amir Peretz said on Tuesday.
A military source told Agence France Presse that operation ”Summer Rain” is only the first step in Israel’s offensive, with the main objective to up pressure on the Palestinians, whom Israel holds responsible for Shalit’s fate.
The source said the decision to launch the operation was aimed at ”showing how serious our intentions are to bring him back home”.
If the first and limited stage yields no tangible results in the coming hours, Israel was ready to step up the offensive and send its tanks deep into populated Palestinian areas, the official said.
Pressing home the threat, thousands of troops remained massed on the Israeli side of the border facing southern and northern Gaza, poised for follow-up action should the political order be given.
Such an operation would be bound to cost the lives of not only of Israeli soldiers but also Palestinians, who have been barricading the streets of the radicalised southern Gaza town of Rafah in anticipation of an Israeli onslaught.
The Hamas-led government denounced the offensive as unjustified ”military madness” and warned that the operation would have heavy consequences.
Government spokesperson Ghazi Hamad was quoted by the official Palestinian Wafa news agency as saying that contacts were continuing with Arab and international parties to ”solve this problem calmly and avoid a military escalation”.
Wafa quoted Hamad as accusing Israel of wanting to ”disseminate chaos and provoke a new bloody conflict” that would cause ”crimes and victims, particularly among civilians,” for which the Jewish state would be responsible.
Previous large-scale Israeli ground operations in the Gaza Strip have a bloody track record. An October 2004 campaign concentrated in the north, for example, left 130 Palestinians dead, according to United Nations figures.
Shalit’s kidnappers, who identified themselves as members of three Palestinian groups including the armed wing of the governing Hamas, vowed not to release the soldier unless Israel frees Palestinian women and children held in prisons.
Olmert has ruled out any negotiations with the hostage takers, and despite pressure exerted by Egypt, France and the United States, the chances of a peaceful outcome looked increasingly remote with Israeli troops inside Gaza.
”This is just a beginning but it is enough to create an initial military stage that will be able to serve in the future as a stepping-stone to a much broader military operation,” ran an editorial in top-selling Yediot Aharanot newspaper.
The rival Maariv daily called the operation ”another attempt” to warn the Palestinians that unless Shalit is returned as soon as possible, ”the situation in Gaza will be very bad indeed”.
The prospects of a peaceful resolution also appeared bleak when faced with the history of Israeli military kidnappings over the last two decades.
In 1994, a botched attempt by elite Israeli forces to release a kidnapped soldier ended in the hostage’s death. In fact all of the last nine Israeli soldiers abducted by Palestinians ended in their deaths.
Military intelligence officials say they have a strong indication Shalit is somewhere in the town of Rafah, but that reaching the area remains an extremely complex and risky operation, with the chances of the soldier coming out alive slim.
Aside from this immediate objective, Israeli forces were also preparing to enter northern Gaza in a bid to stem the ongoing Palestinian fire of homemade rockets into neighbouring Israeli areas.
Meanwhile, the life of Shalit depends on Israel, the deputy prime minister of the Hamas-led government said on Wednesday, calling on his captors to keep him alive.
”The life of the soldier depends on the Israeli government’s decision,” Nasserdine al-Shaer told reporters in the West Bank town of Ramallah as he chaired an urgent meeting of the Palestinian Cabinet.
The meeting was made up of ministers based in the occupied West Bank, with those in the Gaza Strip unable to attend owing to the security situation.
”We ask the kidnappers of the soldier to preserve his life and treat him well,” Shaer said.
”At the same time, we ask the world and United Nations Security Council to stop the Israeli escalation against the Palestinians and preserve Palestinian lives,” he said. – Sapa-AFP