Palestinians holding an Israeli soldier said on Tuesday that they had ended negotiations on his fate after Israel ignored an ultimatum to begin releasing prisoners.
The Hamas-led militants holding Corporal Gilad Shalit had said if Israel had not begun releasing some of the 1 500 prisoners by 6am on Tuesday it would ”bear the consequences”. A spokesperson for the Army of Islam, one of Shalit’s abductors, said they had ”decided to freeze all contacts and close the files of this soldier”, but added: ”We will not kill the soldier, if he is still alive.”
Israeli and Palestinian officials believe the corporal is still alive and negotiations are taking place all over the Middle East to secure his release.
Israel maintained its military pressure on Gaza on Tuesday night by bombing buildings at the Islamic University in Gaza City and hitting other targets. Troops and tanks moved further into northern Gaza as six Qassam rockets were fired at Israel. A different force remained camped around the disused airport in southern Gaza. Palestinian militants also fired Qassam rockets at Israel.
Mark Regev, a spokesperson for the Foreign Ministry, said Israel preferred a peaceful solution to the crisis. ”The diplomatic process which is under way is important because it will create greater international understanding if we are forced to carry out a larger incursion in Gaza,” he said.
According to Palestinian diplomats and negotiators, the fate of Shalit has become entwined with Palestinian power struggles and international rivalry in the Middle East.
Aides of Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian President, believe that his destiny is in the hands of the Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal, who is based in Damascus and is sponsored by Iran and Syria. Meshaal, whom Israel tried to assassinate in 1997, is using the crisis to assert his leadership of Hamas and promote his candidacy for the leadership of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation, of which Hamas is not yet a member.
A Palestinian diplomat said: ”The problem is Meshaal, not Israel, at the moment. The issue is not whether the captors can trust Israel but the amount of pressure that is brought to bear in Damascus.”
Both Israel and the office of Abbas accept that the Hamas government led by Ismail Haniyeh has virtually no influence over the Hamas military wing. The military wing and Meshaal insist they will not exchange Shalit without an official prisoner exchange of the kind spelt out in the demands of the captors.
The Hamas military wing in Gaza, led by Ahmed Jaabri, obeys Meshaal, primarily because he distributes the funds received from Iran and the Gulf states.
Syria is keen to exert influence, particularly to destabilise its main enemy, Israel. Its influence in Lebanon and Iraq has been curtailed by international pressure so its sponsorship of Hamas is one of the few strategic tools it retains.
According to sources close to Abbas, Bashar Assad, the president of Syria, has so far ignored the entreaties of Hosni Mubarak, the President of Egypt. Egypt’s interest lies in taming Hamas, which is an offshoot of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood.
Mubarak travelled to Saudi Arabia on Monday with Nabil Shaath, the former Palestinian foreign minister and associate of Abbas, to request King Abdullah’s help in putting pressure on Syria. – Guardian Unlimited Â