JERUSALEM: An Egyptian security delegation has made contact with the kidnappers of an Israeli soldier grabbed during a Palestinian attack on an Israeli position near the Gaza Strip, Israeli public radio said Monday. The delegation, which arrived in the Gaza Strip on Sunday, established contact with the kidnappers through a third party, the radio said. The soldier was wounded, the radio said quoting the Egyptian delegation, without giving details. The soldier, 20-year-old Gilad Shalit, went missing after militants tunneled into Israel and launched the brazen attack, firing grenades and rockets at an army border post near southern Gaza early Sunday. Israel on Sunday vowed to avenge any harm done to the soldier kidnapped during a Palestinian militant attack on an outpost that left two Israeli soldiers and two activists dead. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said on Monday he had put the army on standby for a major military offensive against Palestinian militants in Gaza as officials tried to secure the release of a kidnapped soldier. Olmert warned of a comprehensive and protracted operation after a raid into Israel on Sunday by militants including members of the ruling Hamas movement. The gunmen killed two soldiers and carried off a third. Two attackers were killed Olmert s inner cabinet has given the Palestinians until Tuesday to return Corporal Gilad Shalit, a conscript tank gunner. Hamas armed wing, the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, was one of three factions claiming responsibility for the bold and well coordinated attack in which four Israelis were also wounded, one of them seriously. It was the largest attack in the volatile border area since Israel pulled troops and settlers out of the impoverished coastal strip last summer, ending a 38-year presence. Speaking in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Deputy Prime Minister Nasser Shaer of Hamas called for the soldier s release. We care about the life of the soldier and we call upon the kidnappers to guarantee his life and to release him, Shaer said. Hamas TV ran a statement by Abu Musanna, a spokesman for Islamic Army, a PRC offshoot, rejecting the appeals. He said the group s demands in exchange for the soldier would be a prize for our people. Hamas, which recently resumed its open involvement in rocket fire on Israel, confirmed its participation in the attack. The small Popular Resistance Committees and a previously unknown group, the Islamic Army, said they also took part. Though considered a single entity by Israel and the West, Hamas has divisions. Its political and military wings are separate, and political leaders outside the West Bank and Gaza are more extreme than some of the leaders in the territories. Some analysts said the exiled leaders ordered the attack through the military wing, bypassing and undermining the local leadership, which has been working toward a common political front with moderate President Mahmoud Abbas. Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri explained the attack. This operation is a natural response to the Israeli crimes of killing women and children, and the assassination of two (militant) leaders, he said. One of those leaders, PRC leader Jamal Abu Samhadana, was killed in an Israeli air strike two weeks ago, shortly after accepting a senior security position in the Hamas-led government, part of a rapidly escalating round of rocket barrages and counterstrikes. In 1994, when Cpl. Nachshon Waxman, a 19-year-old Israeli-American, was kidnapped from a hitchhiking post by militants, Israeli forces tracked him to a house in the West Bank and stormed it instead of negotiating. Waxman and two of his captors were killed in the battle. A statement from Abbas office deplored the attack and said it threatened to give Israel a pretext to launch a widespread military operation against Gaza. Abbas was in touch with world leaders, including the U.S. secretary of state and the British foreign secretary, to discuss the latest crisis, said aide Nabil Abu Rdeneh. Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz issued a direct threat against the militants holding Shalit, warning that anyone who causes the soldier to be harmed should know that the soldier s blood is on his head. Reporters and photographers swarmed into Mitzpeh Hila, a tiny village in Israel s north where the soldier s family lives. His parents did not talk to reporters. But Maj. Gen. Gen. Elazar Stern, commander of the army s manpower branch, said he told them that, despite reports of Shalit being wounded, he was still able to walk. Gilad went on his feet, Stern said. Channel 10 TV reported the soldier s blood-spattered footprints were found leading into Gaza. A neighbor, Ilana Levy-Zrihan, said Shalit had been in the army for 11 months, and described him as quiet, introverted, pleasant, everybody s friend. Pictures showed him as a slender youth with black-rimmed glasses. Agencies
