Israel gears up for offensive over kidnapped soldier

1 hour, 8 minutes ago

JERUSALEM (AFP) - Israeli troops massed on the Gaza border as Prime Minister Ehud Olmert ordered commanders to prepare a major offensive after the kidnapping of a soldier, igniting fears of a sharp escalation in the Middle East conflict.

The 20-year-old Israeli corporal, who also holds French nationality, was snatched on Sunday in a dawn raid on an army post on the Gaza Strip border in which two other Israeli servicemen and two Palestinian fighters were killed.

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, under intense international pressure to resolve the crisis, ordered his security services to launch a massive manhunt for the kidnapped conscript to avert a possible widescale Israeli assault.

Three Palestinian groups, including the armed wing of Hamas, have called for the release of all Palestinian women and children from Israeli jails in exchange for information on the soldier, a demand Olmert promptly rejected.

"The question of freeing (Palestinian) prisoners is in no way on the Israeli government agenda," Olmert said Monday during a speech in Jerusalem.

"There will be no negotiations, no bargaining, no agreements," he said.

The premier also vowed that a "large-scale military operation is approaching" and that Gaza had been sealed off by Israeli forces.

"We will not wait indefinitely, because we have no intention of being blackmailed by Hamas."

Earlier Monday, Olmert said he had "instructed the heads of the army to deploy our forces in order to be ready to prepare for a prolonged and extensive military operation in order to strike the terror organisations and commanders.

"We will reach everyone, anywhere and they know. There will be no immunity for anyone," he vowed.

Sunday's attack, which saw gunmen tunnel their way under the border, was the deadliest militant assault in the area since last year when Israel left Gaza, which has since become plagued by lawlessness and deadly political feuding.

"We consider the Palestinian Authority on all its senior levels, from the chairman down to the prime minister, as the element responsible for this operation (Sunday's attack) and everything that it implies," Olmert said.

A high-ranking security official also threatened that Israel would work to topple the Hamas-led government -- boycotted financially and politically by the West since taking office in March -- unless the soldier is freed alive.

"We will make sure that the Hamas government ceases to operate if the kidnapped soldier is not returned to us alive," the source told AFP.

Abbas spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina said the Palestinian president, who condemned Sunday's attack and ordered a manhunt for the missing soldier, Gilad Shalit, was locked in intense discussions to stave off Israeli retaliation.

Outside the Kerem Shalom gate into Gaza, near the site of the attack, the army was amassing tanks, ground troops and artillery, waiting for the green light from political leaders for any possible strike.

Late Monday, in the latest of a series of Palestinian strikes from Gaza on Israeli targets, militants fired four rockets at the Israeli border town of Sderot, slightly wounding four people, Israeli military sources said.

The Hamas-led government has demanded the immediate release of Shalit, even though its armed wing was among three militant groups which claimed responsibility for Sunday's assault.

A representative of the Popular Resistance Committees, which admitted carrying out the attack with the Hamas wing and the previously unheard-of Army of Islam, said in a telephone call to AFP that it was holding the soldier.

"He is alive and in good health," the representative said on condition of anonymity. "He is not seriously injured."

But he gave no indication as to the whereabouts of Shalit, whose bloodstained flak jacket was found near the scene of the attack.

As the international community called for Shalit's immediate release, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, the United States and the European Commission urged both sides to show restraint amid fears of a slide into all-out conflict.

Annan urged all parties to "exercise restraint at this grave moment, and to take all possible steps to avoid further escalation and bloodshed," his spokesman said.

US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack also urged restraint and repeated that Washington felt "it is the responsibility of the Palestinian Authority government to stop all acts of violence."

Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said it was Israel's "natural and legitimate right" to use military force to retrieve its missing soldier, but Housing Minister Meir Sheetrit said the government would first give diplomacy a chance.

"We decided not to have an immediate military reaction and give diplomacy a chance," he said. "We will not let anger dictate our reaction."

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