GAZA CITY, 10 July 2006 — Israel said yesterday that its Gaza offensive to free a captured soldier is open-ended as Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas sent emissaries to Damascus to discuss the soldier’s fate with exiled leaders of Hamas.
“This is a war that cannot be on a timetable,” a senior government official quoted Prime Minister Ehud Olmert as telling his Cabinet, a day after Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas raised the prospect of a cease-fire.
“There is no intention to reoccupy Gaza in order to stay there, but if certain operations are needed they will be carried out. We will operate, enter and pull out as needed,” the official quoted Olmert as saying.
Israeli forces launched their offensive, the first such push into Gaza since troops and settlers withdrew from the territory last year, after Palestinians abducted Cpl. Gilad Shalit in a raid into Israel on June 25.
Olmert, the official said, also rejected calls by the three factions that seized the tank gunner, including the governing Hamas group’s armed wing, to release Palestinian prisoners in exchange for information about him.
Such a move, Olmert was quoted as saying, would only strengthen Hamas at the expense of “moderate elements” in the Palestinian Authority.
Israel also threatened to expand its military operations unless the Palestinian groups freed the soldier and halted rocket attacks on Israeli towns. “The operation will go on until someone on the other side sobers up,” Israeli Justice Minister Haim Ramon told Israel Radio.
Abbas yesterday sent two envoys to Hamas’ exiled political leader and Syrian authorities to discuss the fate of Shalit and the crisis in the Gaza Strip. The president instructed members of the Palestine Liberation Organization executive committee, Taysir Khalid and Abdullah Horani, to meet Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal, the Syrian leadership and Palestinian factions in Damascus, Palestinian source said.
Israel has repeatedly accused archfoe Damascus of supporting Palestinian fighters and threatened to kill Hamas leaders based in Damascus. Israeli news reports have suggested that Meshaal has blocked mediation efforts to secure the soldier’s release.
Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat urged international aid organizations to help avert a “human catastrophe” in Gaza. Israeli forces have destroyed a main power station there and killed at least 50 people, residents said. The offensive has been criticized by the European Union and United Nations, but those organizations wield far less influence on Israel than its main ally, the United States, which has led an international aid boycott of the Hamas-led government.
“Let’s remember who started this,” US Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns told CNN. “It was the outrageous actions of Hamas in violating Israel’s sovereignty, in taking the soldier hostage.”
In the latest violence, an Israeli aircraft fired missiles at a car carrying two fighters near the southern Gaza town of Rafah, killing a bystander and wounding one of the gunmen as well as four civilians, Palestinian security officials said.
At least three fighters were wounded in an early morning Israeli airstrike near the Karni commercial crossing between Gaza and Israel, Palestinian medics and police said.
— Additional input from agencies
