Captors give Israel 24-hour ultimatum

Palestinian militants who captured an Israeli soldier gave Israel less than 24 hours yesterday to start releasing 1,500 Palestinian prisoners, and implied he would be killed if Israel did not comply.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's office repeated vows not to negotiate. However, the government sent mixed messages on the issue, with the military chief not ruling out talks for a prisoner swap.

Corporal Gilad Shalit's captors delivered their ultimatum as Israel made good on its promise not to let Gaza sleep until he was freed, firing artillery shells and missiles into the coastal strip, and massing troops and tanks along the Gaza-Israel border.

"We give the Zionist enemy until 6:00 tomorrow morning (0300 GMT), Tuesday, July 4," the three militant groups that seized him said in a statement posted on the website of the ruling Hamas party's military wing and faxed to news agencies.

If Israel doesn't comply with the militants' demands, "we will consider the soldier's case to be closed," it said, an apparent reference to killing him. "And then the enemy must bear all the consequences of the future results."

The Israeli Government said it would not cave in to extortion.

"There will be no negotiations to release prisoners," the prime minister's office said in a statement that held the Palestinians' ruling Hamas party responsible for Shalit's safe return.

But military chief Lieutenant General Dan Halutz did not say no when asked by reporters if Israel should negotiate.

"We, and by that I mean the political and military echelons, will consider all that there is to be considered, then reach conclusions and act on them," Halutz said after leaving the Shalit family's home in northern Israel.

Israel has swapped prisoners before to win the release of captured citizens, alive and dead, in usually lopsided deals that hand far more prisoners to the Palestinians.

Shalit, 19, was captured on June 25 in a cross-border raid by Hamas' military wing and two allied groups, the Popular Resistance Committees and the Army of Islam.

Israel has sent tanks, troops, gunboats and aircraft to attack Gaza over the past week to press militants to free Shalit. Intensive efforts to mediate his release, involving Egypt and other regional players, have not been successful.

There has been no sign of life from the soldier since his seizure, and no concrete evidence of his condition, though Israeli officials have said they think he is alive.

Shalit's captors initially demanded the release of about 500 women and children prisoners held in Israeli jails. They later raised their demands to include an additional 1,000 prisoners. Israel is currently holding about 9,000 Palestinians.

In their statement, Shalit's captors accused Israel of not "learning lessons" from the cases of other kidnapped soldiers. The last Israeli soldier kidnapped by Hamas, Nachshon Wachsman, died in 1994 in an Israeli commando raid on his captors' Jerusalem hideout.

Breaking her silence in an op-ed piece in the Haaretz newspaper, Wachsman's mother, Esther, accused Israel's leaders of a lack of candor in dealing with hostage cases.

"I am not calling for the release of murderers, but they (Israel's leaders) should not insult our intelligence because they have negotiated and they have given in to terror," Esther Wachsman wrote.

Source: China Daily