Israel on Tuesday ordered more military action to secure the release of a captured soldier the government said was still alive after an ultimatum set by his Palestinian captors expired.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert again ruled out any negotiations with militants to free the conscript, despite the expiry of a 6am local time deadline for Israel to release prisoners or ”face the consequences”.
The government rejected the ultimatum outright but said it was confident that 19-year-old Gilad Shalit, seized nine days ago and wounded in a Palestinian raid, was still alive.
”We are sure of our information. As I speak to you, he is alive,” Cabinet spokesperson Avi Pazner told French television.
The shadowy Army of Islam, one of three groups that claim to be holding Shalit in the Gaza Strip, said he would not be killed despite another night of deadly Israeli air strikes on the impoverished territory.
”Some people thought that the groups that carried out the operation will kill him, but our Islamic values tell us that prisoners should be respected and not killed,” said spokesperson Abu Muthanna.
The group, together with the armed wing of the governing Hamas movement and the Popular Resistance Committees, snatched Shalit in a raid on an army post on June 25 in which two other soldiers and two militants were killed.
”We gave an ultimatum and it has expired, all the efforts have failed. The enemy now bears the responsibility for the consequences of its position on the fate of the soldier,” Abu Muthanna said.
Israel, which has sent tanks and troops back into the Gaza Strip for the first time since leaving last September after a 38-year occupation, vowed to continue its offensive.
”I gave the order to continue operations to strike terrorists, those who protect them and those who give them orders,” Olmert said on Tuesday.
”We will hit all terrorists. No one who attempts to harm the state of Israel of Israel will be spared.”
Olmert, who has massed 5 000 troops on the Gaza border poised for a threatened full-scale onslaught, has rejected militant demands for Israel to free 1 000 prisoners as well as Palestinian women and minors.
The premier, staring down the barrel of the worst crisis of his two-month leadership, reiterated that he would not negotiate or give in to blackmail.
”We do not negotiate with terrorists. We act with all the necessary force but we do not give in to blackmail,” he said.
Hamas Premier Ismail Haniya said his government continued to appeal for ”the need to preserve the life of the kidnapped Israeli soldier and treat him well”.
The armed wing of Hamas, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, has threatened to resume attacks inside Israel after an 18-month truce, warning of a ”sea of blood” should the military assault on Gaza not cease.
One of its militants was killed in an Israeli air strike in the northern Gaza Strip early on Tuesday, on the seventh straight night of an air campaign launched in a bid to force Shalit’s release.
Palestinians said a second strike targeted Gaza City’s Islamic University.
The army said it targeted a ”structure” used by Hamas to ”plan terrorist attacks against Israel and dispatch terrorists”.
The latest salvos in the escalating crisis came one day after the three factions that seized the conscript issued their ultimatum.
”If the enemy does not meet the demands we laid out in our previous statement … we will consider the matter closed and the enemy will be responsible for all results,” they had said.
The captors never explicitly said they would kill Shalit, who is believed to have been wounded in the June 25 attack and to be held in southern Gaza.
French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said Paris had demanded the unconditional release of Shalit — who also has French nationality — insisting that diplomacy rather than violence should prevail.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair said he and his allies were ”trying to calm” a situation he called ”ghastly and terrible”.
Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who has tried to mediate in the crisis, have condemned the ”Israeli escalation” and agreed that mediation should continue.
The international community has issued appeals for restraint in the worst crisis in the Middle East since Hamas came to power in March and Olmert formally took the Israeli helm in May.
White House spokesperson Tony Snow said a ”return to peace and security … has to begin with the return of the Israeli soldier”.
The United Nations Middle East envoy warned on Tuesday that the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip, with a population of 1,4-million, had become ”dangerous” after Israel knocked out a power station last week.
Warning of the risk of water-borne diseases without proper water distribution, sanitation and sewage system, Alvaro de Soto urged Israel to restore fuel supplies and ”cooperate energetically” to get the transformers replaced.
Israel has attacked militant and civilian targets across Gaza with waves of night-time air strikes, and in a dramatic warning to Hamas on Sunday, hit the office of Prime Minister Haniya.
For the first time since launching its assault, Israel early on Monday sent its armour into northern Gaza, although it has yet to launch a major threatened ground offensive there.
Israel last week also hit the Hamas-run Interior Ministry in Gaza, detained scores of Hamas members in the occupied West Bank — including a third of the Cabinet — and revoked the Jerusalem residency of four others.
The raids have forced many Hamas officials to sleep in different locations, renounce mobile phones for fear of being located, change vehicles often and avoid routine appointments. — AFP
