| What else would he say? "Go ahead and thump us?" |
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas warned yesterday that the coming hours were “critical, sensitive and serious” to resolving the crisis, appealing for negotiations to continue, as an official said the soldier whose abduction sparked Israel’s invasion of Gaza is alive and in stable condition.Israeli soldiers and Palestinian fighters exchanged fire for several hours yesterday afternoon when Israeli tanks and bulldozers crossed the border with Gaza and began razing farmland east of the town of Khan Younis. Palestinians shot an anti-tank rocket at one of the vehicles. The army responded with gunfire and a missile launched from an unmanned plane. No major injuries were reported on either side. The fighting took place north of the position Israeli troops have occupied since they entered Gaza on Wednesday. The army said it was carrying out a limited operation in the area and the soldiers were expected to leave soon.
No sign has been seen of Cpl. Gilad Shalit, 19, since he was abducted a week ago during a Palestinian raid on an Israeli Army post just outside Gaza that killed two soldiers and two of the attackers. The Hamas-affiliated fighters holding Shalit initially said they would trade information about him for all Palestinian women and underage prisoners being held in Israeli jails. They raised their demands yesterday, calling for an end to the Israeli offensive and the release of 1,000 additional prisoners held by Israel, including non-Palestinian Muslims and Arabs. The new demands were also rejected by Israel. They appeared aimed at rallying support in the Arab world. Israel has ruled out any compromise with the kidnappers, saying it would only encourage more abductions.
Ziad Abu Aen, a Palestinian deputy minister and a Hamas official, said yesterday that “mediators” told him Shalit had received medical treatment for the wounds he sustained in the raid and was in stable condition. “He has three wounds,” Abu Aen said at a news conference in the West Bank city of Ramallah. “I guess shrapnel wounds.”