| Better late than never... |
 Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert stepped up pressure on the Palestinian government Sunday, telling his military to ''do all it can'' to free an abducted soldier and hinting Israel may arrest Hamas leaders in Gaza.
| Should be rounding them up now. Should have been all along... |
Olmert's threat, just hours after an Israeli airstrike blasted the Palestinian prime minister's office, signaled that the government was losing patience with diplomatic efforts to end the crisis and was planning to escalate its military offensive.
| "Losing patience" means they're tired of playing games... |
Israeli aircraft, gunboats and artillery have pounded the Gaza Strip since Israeli troops and tanks took up positions in southern Gaza on Wednesday in an operation aimed at pressuring Palestinians to free Cpl. Gilad Shalit. Early Monday, Israel shelled northern Gaza, slightly wounding one person in a house on the outskirts of the town of Beit Hanoun, Palestinians said. The military said artillery was firing at the area.
| I initially couldn't understand why they're not piling up Paleocasualties, but once I thought about it, the usual sequence is for Israel to respond to an atrocity and then as soon as there's blood on the floor the original reason for the thump is forgotten by the World Community™. I'm guessing that if it comes to blood on the floor it'll be quick and hopefully in large quantities. |
Israel has been massing forces across from Beit Hanoun. Olmert called off a planned invasion late last week, but there were signs that the military is ready to roll again. The Hamas-affiliated militants holding Shalit have offered to give Israel information about him in exchange for the release of hundreds of prisoners in Israeli jails, a deal Israel has rejected.
| Since that was the bad guyz' original objective... |
''These are difficult days for Israel, but we have no intention of giving in to any form of blackmailing,'' Olmert said Sunday. ''Everyone understands that giving in to terror today means an invitation to the next act of terrorism, and we will not act that way.'' Meanwhile, Israel reopened a cargo crossing into Gaza to allow food and fuel shipments into the territory. Egypt has been working to broker a compromise to free the soldier and end the standoff, but negotiations were complicated by confusion over who is in charge of Shalit's fate.
| Hamas has him. Hamas has to cough him up. |
Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh's Hamas-led government said it has no contact with the kidnappers.
The militants holding Shalit are presumed to answer to Hamas' leader, Khaled Mashaal, who lives in Syria. But Hamas' foreign leadership denied having any authority over the matter.
| At which point their lips fell off, too... |
''We have no contact with those holding the prisoner,'' said Osama Hamdan, a top leader of the Islamic militant group who is based in Lebanon. |