Israel hopes its violent standoff with Hamas over a captured soldier will eventually produce a new ceasefire with the Islamic militants, an Israeli Cabinet minister said yesterday, as Israeli troops exchanged fire with Palestinian gunmen and army bulldozers searched for militants' tunnels.
Until now, Israel had set only two goals for its military campaign in Gaza -- to win the release of the soldier, Corporal Gilad Shalit, and to halt Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel.
However, Cabinet minister Ofir Pines-Paz said yesterday that Israel wants to go beyond that.
"We have a great interest in changing the rules of the game," Pines-Paz, a member of the Labor Party and of Israel's Security Cabinet, told Israel Radio. "If we reach a situation in which there are no kidnappings, no rockets, no tunnels, no raids into our territory, certainly Israel will have to reciprocate."
Hamas officials offered contradictory responses.
Mushir al-Masri, a spokesman for the Palestinian ruling party, suggested rocket fire could end if Israel stops its offensive. However, the group said in a statement on its Web site that rockets "are the only available means for the Palestinian people to defend themselves in the face of the aggression and Zionist incursion into Gaza."
The latest round of fighting, which claimed the lives of 35 Palestinians and an Israeli soldier over the past three days, began two weeks ago with a cross-border raid in which Hamas-allied militants seized the Israeli soldier.
Troops initially entered southern Gaza where Shalit is being held. Hamas said on Friday that he is being treated well, and a senior Israeli defense official, Amos Gilad, said yesterday that Israel also believes the soldier is alive.
Yesterday morning, dozens of tanks drove toward Gaza City, taking up positions about 500m from the outlying neighborhoods of Shajaiyeh and Zeitun. The army said the forces were sent to the area to search for tunnels being dug by militants for possible attacks on soldiers.
The air force fired missiles at a group of militants gathered at the outskirts of Shajaiyeh. Two Hamas gunmen were killed in the area, hospital officials said. Also, a Palestinian died of wounds sustained in earlier fighting, bringing the three-day total to 35.
The majority of the Palestinians killed since Thursday were gunmen, but also included a number of civilians, including an 11-year-old boy.
At midday yesterday, about 250 Palestinians conducted a funeral procession in downtown Gaza City, carrying the bodies of two Palestinian militants who had been killed earlier in the day in fighting with Israeli forces.
Also yesterday, 65 US citizens, many of Palestinian origin, left Gaza in a convoy escorted by US consular officials. The visitors had asked to leave Gaza because of the fighting.
In northern Gaza, troops pulled back from the town of Beit Lahiya yesterday, leaving a path of destruction. Tanks driving through narrow streets had shorn off outer walls of buildings, torn down electricity polls and carved up asphalt. Facades of buildings were marked by bullet holes from exchanges of fire.
Israeli military commentators have said it would be difficult for Israel to extract the soldier in a military operation. However, Israel also does not want to be seen as cutting a deal with Hamas.
RSS