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| Israel-Palestine-Jordan | |||
| Mashaal: More soldiers will be kidnapped | |||
| 2010-06-29 | |||
Hamas plans to kidnap more IDF soldiers and the price for captive tank gunner Gilad Schalit will increase if Israel doesn't meet its demands for a prisoner swap, Damascus-based Hamas chief Khaled Mashaal warned on Monday.
"Israel is responsible for the failure in negotiations," Mashaal added, saying he had relayed a message to the German mediator: "If you come to the negotiations table again with Netanyahu's demands -- don't come, stay where you are." Directing his remarks to the prime minister, Mashaal said: "We will not repeat our requests over and over. You know the list [of security prisoners demanded], and we will not change it." The Hamas leader added, "We will not be flexible in our demands. As time goes by, our demands will grow, and so will the price. Israel is America's lackey, that wants to strengthen [Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud] Abbas, and therefore is the real one to blame for the failure in negotiations." Meanwhile, at the Labor faction meeting in the Knesset on Monday, Defense Minister Ehud Barak hinted that a military option existed for freeing Gilad.
"We sent Gilad Schalit [to the Gaza border], and we must do everything possible to bring him home," Barak told the Labor MKs. "There are negotiations that must develop to create the possibility of his return, and there are other channels of action -- and it would be wrong to elaborate about them." According to diplomatic sources, Israel has expressed a willingness to release about 1,000 Palestinian prisoners, including 450 names agreed upon with Hamas, in return for Schalit, on condition that more than 100 of these prisoners who are responsible for some 600 Israeli deaths are not allowed to return to the West Bank, but go either to the Gaza Strip or another country. Israel is also refusing to release "mega terrorists" responsible for the worst atrocities over the past 20 years, including the attack at the Dolphinarium discotheque suicide bombing in Tel Aviv in 2001 (21 teenagers dead and 132 wounded), the Sbarro restaurant suicide bombing in Jerusalem in 2001 (15 civilians dead and 130 wounded), and the Park Hotel massacre in Netanya on Seder night in 2002 (30 civilians killed and 140 wounded).
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| Posted by:Steve White |
| #6 Line up a few dozen artillery pieces on the north of Gaza, and start blasting away. Move south a bit each day, and keep it up until Hamass releases Shalit and leaves Gaza for Somalia (they really won't be welcome there, which is the point). If the artillery reaches the Egyptian border, we'll know that: a) Shalit is dead. b) so is hamass. c) the Israelis can reabsorb Gaza without worrying about a third (or fourth) intifada. d) the solution worked, and can now be used on the West Bank. |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2010-06-29 14:49 |
| #5 "I'm a little disheartened that Mossad and IDF can't figure out where he is -- Gaza simply isn't that big." Assuming that Schalit is still alive he is probably moved a few times a week. |
| Posted by: lord garth 2010-06-29 12:51 |
| #4 Gaza simply isn't that big Iran is. |
| Posted by: gorb 2010-06-29 03:36 |
| #3 The International Red Cross/Crescent/anything-but-Star-of-David have never seen or spoken to Sgt. Schalit, CrazyFool. Nor has anyone else not of Hamas or his original captors. There was a video Hamas released last year, in which he held up a newspaper and referenced recent events, I believe. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2010-06-29 01:22 |
| #2 Good chance the poor kid is already dead. Or won't live long after any prisoners are released. No one credible has seen him have they? (the International Red Cross is not considered 'credible'.) |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2010-06-29 00:15 |
| #1 Steve It doesn't matter if he is held hostage or dead. Israel just needs to consider him dead and kill everybody involved. |
| Posted by: 3dc 2010-06-29 00:06 |