Free Republic

A sizable majority of Palestinians support the continued kidnappings of Israelis as well as persistent Qassam rocket fire as a means to pressure Israel to release Palestinian prisoners, according to a new poll commissioned by the Jerusalem Media and Communication Center, the results of which were released Sunday. Of the 1,197 respondents from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, 66.8 percent expressed support for further kidnappings of Israeli civilians while 77.2 percent backed the Kerem Shalom tunnel operation and subsequent kidnapping of Israel Defense Forces Corporal Gilad Shalit. Nonetheless, just 47.7 percent of those polled said they believed the...

More than 70 terrorists have been killed since the onset of Operation Summer Rain last week in the Gaza Strip, the IDF said Saturday night. Some 40 armed Palestinians were killed in IDF operations in north Gaza, said the army. One IDF soldier, Yehuda Basel, was killed by friendly fire.

An Israel Defense Forces soldier was killed Thursday afternoon during an Israel Defense Forces operation in the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Lahia. First Lieutenent Yehuda Bessal was seriously wounded when shot in the head by a Palestinian sniper who infiltrated the house in the Beit Lahia neighborhood of al-Atara where his Golani Brigade unit had taken position. Bessal was evacuated by helicopter to the Soroka Medical Center in Be'er Sheva, where he died of his wounds. Palestinian snipers continued to fire during rescue efforts, delaying the evacuation of the soldier to hospital. Twenty-one Palestinians were killed and more...

Israeli forces took over a belt of the northern Gaza Strip on Thursday after threatening to expand an offensive to curb rocket fire, Palestinian security sources said. The area included three former Jewish settlements, demolished when Israel quit the Gaza Strip last year after 38 years of occupation. Militants often use the rubble-covered zone for firing rockets into Israel. The Israeli army said that troops had begun moving into the northern Gaza Strip, but gave no further details. Israel vowed on Wednesday to step up its incursion into the northern Gaza Strip after rockets fired from Gaza hit Ashkelon, a...

The IDF has raised the level of alert along the northern border with Syria out of fear that President Bashar Assad would launch a strike against Israel in response to a recent IAF buzz of his palace. Syrian military forces, IDF officers confirmed Tuesday, have also gone on high alert, and the assumption in the IDF is that Assad would order a harsh military response if Israel decided to take additional steps against Damascus in relation to the kidnapping of Cpl. Gilad Shalit in the Gaza Strip. The type of response is unknown at this stage, but officers said it...

Israel will continue its ongoing military operation against Hamas as if there were no ultimatum, and has warned key international players that the military action will be escalated if Cpl. Gilad Shalit is killed, according to government officials. One senior official in the Prime Minister's Office said Monday that the IDF's ongoing military operation will not be impacted by the ultimatum issued by Shalit's captors on Monday - which Israel rejected - to begin releasing Palestinian prisoners by 6 a.m. Tuesday, or the captors would consider the Shalit "case to be closed." The ultimatum triggered warnings by various cabinet ministers...

Interior Minister Ronnie Bar-On has warned that the kidnappers of Gilad Shalit will pay "an unprecedented price if they harm the soldier." Bar-On spoke with Ynet on Monday hours before the ultimatum set by Shalit's kidnappers expired. "There's no connection between this incident and past incidents. This is a kidnapping of a soldier inside the State of Israel by a terror cell which set out from Gaza. This government's worldview is that it won't surrender to blackmail. We have done everything possible and appropriate under the circumstances. Despite the ongoing military and diplomatic pressure, the results are clear: There's no...

The London-based Al Hayat newspaper reported on Monday that Egyptian representatives in the Gaza Strip confirmed that kidnapped IDF Cpl. Gilad Shalit is alive. The report also supported previous Palestinian announcements that Shalit was receiving medical care for wounds sustained in the attack on IDF forces during which he was abducted eight days ago. Since Shalit was kidnapped near Kerem Shalom on the Gaza border, reports that he was seen alive have consistently turned out to be false, Army Radio reported. Palestinian sources also reported that Egypt has decided to persist in efforts to negotiate an agreement between Israel and...

Israel's prime minister said on Sunday he had ordered the army to "intensify" operations in Gaza to free a captured soldier after aircraft attacked the office of Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas. The pre-dawn strike on Haniyeh's empty office in the Gaza Strip followed warnings from Israel that no one in the Hamas-led government was immune from attack. "I have given instructions to intensify the strength of action by the army and security services, to hunt down these terrorists, those who send them ... and those who harbor them," the Israeli leader, Ehud Olmert, said at a cabinet...

The doctor who visited kidnapped IDF soldier Cpl. Gilad Shalit said his condition was good and that he was wounded in his stomach and shoulder, a senior Palestinian official told Israel Radio late Friday. The doctor's visit, which apparently took place on Thursday, came after pressure from Egypt led Damascus-based Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal to approve the checkup. The kidnappers had originally refused to allow a visit. According to Palestinian sources, Shalit was wounded in his shoulder and stomach from shrapnel, but his wounds were treated and his life was not in danger.

The Palestinian militants have kidnapped a second Israeli soldier and have threatened to kill him unless Israel ends its military offensive in the Palestinian territories, the radical Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades announced overnight on Friday. In a statement received by AFP in Gaza City, the armed group, loosely affiliated to Fatah Party, called for "the end of the Israeli offensive" and "the lifting of the blockade" in the territories. "If our demands are not met, the Al-Aqsa Brigades will kill the kidnapped soldier," the statement said, without giving any details of the kidnapping. The soldier was seized in the West Bank,...

In an emergency session of the UN Security Council, the Palestinians accused Israel on Friday of launching a premeditated military assault in Gaza to sabotage Palestinian unity and collectively punish and terrorize hundreds of thousands of civilians. Israel countered that Gaza has become "a terror base" actively supported by the Hamas-led government. Arab nations had requested the meeting to demand that the UN's most powerful body order a halt to the Israel offensive which followed the abduction of a soldier. Palestinian UN Observer Riyad Mansour said Israel's air and ground assault on Gaza using warplanes, tank artillery bombardment, and shelling...

The Simon Wiesenthal Center called for an international arrest warrant to be issued for the apprehension of Hamas leader and one of Israel's most wanted men, Khaled Mashaal, according to a press release put out by the organization. According to the SWC, Mashaal is the chief architect in the terror campaign against Israel. "The time has come for the United Nations to demand that Syria give up Khaled Mashaal and to issue an international arrest order for his apprehension," wrote Rabbi Marvin Hier, the Center's Founder and Dean, in a letter to United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan on Thursday....

Hamas has conditionally agreed to free a kidnapped Israeli soldier, but Israel rejected the Islamic group's terms for his release, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak told Egypt's leading daily al-Ahram. Mubarak described talks with Hamas as "positive" but said he warned leaders of the group against holding on to their "extreme positions," urging them to pursue a responsible policy. In compliance with Cairo's demands Israel froze a planned incursion into the northern Gaza Strip on Thursday night to give Egyptian mediators more time to secure the release of Corporal Gilad Shalit. Shalit was kidnapped in an attack on an Israel Defense...

IAF warplanes hit offices of the Fatah movement and a Hamas facility in Gaza City early Friday, witnesses said. There were no reports of casualties. The IDF had no immediate comment. The airstrikes followed an attack on the Palestinian Interior Ministry in Gaza City, among more than a dozen air attacks by IDF forces in the Gaza Strip in the last few hours.

Peretz: No Hamas member immune Defense minister approves further ‘Summer Rain’ operation plans during meeting with top security officials, but stresses: Diplomatic effort not yet lost cause. 'We are in decisive moment with respect to deciding rules of game between us and terrorist elements in Palestinian Authority,' he adds Hanan Greenberg Defense Minister Amir Peretz said Thursday, “We are in one of the most significant moments with respect to deciding the rules of the game between us and terrorist elements in the Palestinian Authority in the coming period." The defense minister was speaking during a meeting convened with top security...