Standoff brewing on captive Israeli

RAFAH, Gaza Strip -- Even as Israeli shells crashed down near their houses and Israeli tanks maneuvered nearby, many Palestinians in the Gaza Strip yesterday declared they would rather face an Israeli invasion than see militants hand over a captured Israeli soldier without winning the freedom of Palestinian prisoners in return.

Israel, too, showed itself willing to go to the brink to win the release of Corporal Gilad Shalit, 19, whom Palestinian militants seized Sunday in a raid that killed two other Israeli soldiers. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said yesterday that the government would not shrink from ``extreme action." Israeli warplanes streaked above the summer house of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, setting off sonic booms in a provocative show of force against the neighboring country that harbors exiled hardline Hamas leaders.

Early today, Israeli forces arrested the deputy prime minister of the Hamas government, Nasser Shaer, as well two other Cabinet ministers and four lawmakers in a raid on a complex in the West Bank city of Ramallah, according to Palestinian security officials.

Even after years of conflict, the plight of prisoners evokes a particularly passionate response from Palestinians and Israelis alike. That sentiment will make it hard for both governments to deescalate a brewing conflict and still satisfy public sentiment that pushes them to take a hard line.

``They must not give him back for free," said Abu Yusef, 36, who carried his youngest children more than a mile to safety after Israeli tanks entered the airport behind his house in Shoka, a village on the outskirts of Rafah in southern Gaza near the Egyptian border. ``We have children in prison, women who even give birth in prison, elderly people, and sick people. What do the Israelis have to fear from people like this?"

The tensions ratcheted up yesterday as the Hamas-led government declared that it would not hand back Shalit without a prisoner exchange. The declaration from the Information Ministry placed the Hamas Cabinet at odds with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who has tried with little success to convince Hamas that releasing the soldier is in Palestinians' best interests.

The militant wing of Hamas, Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades, and two other groups claimed responsibility for the attack Sunday, and the abductors later demanded that Israel release all women prisoners and youths as a condition for Shalit's release. Israel is holding about 100 women and 300 people under age 18 among the more than 8,000 Palestinian prisoners.

In a press conference yesterday at one of Gaza City's main mosques, one of the groups responsible for the abduction, the Popular Resistance Committees, declared that it had kidnapped another Israeli, 18-year-old Eliyahu Asheri from the West Bank settlement of Itamar.

The group early today said it had killed Asheri because Israel did not stop its military operations in Gaza. A body matching the description of the settler was found near Ramallah, but Israeli military officials said they have not yet confirmed it was Asheri.

Israel, too, increased its pressure in Gaza. Israeli shells pounded the outskirts of Rafah and the northern Gaza Strip. Israel Radio, the country's state broadcasting network, reported that the military was sending a third brigade of troops to Gaza. The military said it would set up a base of operations in the southeastern corner of the strip, in the village of Dahaniya and at Gaza's defunct airport, which Israeli troops seized early yesterday. .

But in spite of what was shaping up to be a heavy toll on civilian infrastructure -- electricity was out for about half the strip's 1.3 million residents after Israeli planes bombed a power plant -- Gazans remained nearly unanimous in praising the raid and insisting the militants use Shalit as a bargaining chip with Israel.

Palestinian prisoners hold a place of great respect in Palestinian society, most recently demonstrated by the public's strong support for the ``prisoners' document," an agreement signed by Hamas and Fatah prisoners. That document served as a model for the pact reached Tuesday by the rival factions in which Hamas for the first time agreed to call for a Palestinian state alongside Israel.

Israel, too, has a history of taking strong actions regarding its prisoners. In 1992, Hamas militants kidnapped an Israeli sergeant, Nissim Toledano, and demanded the release of Sheik Ahmed Yassin, Hamas's spiritual leader who was then in prison. Israel refused, and Toledano's body was found two days later. Israel then arrested 2,000 militants and expelled 400 to Lebanon.

In 1994, Israeli commandos raided a house in an attempt to free another kidnapped soldier, Nachshon Waxman. But Waxman, three kidnappers, and an Israeli officer were killed. In 2004, it freed more than 400 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for Elhanan Tannenbaum, an Israeli businessman abducted by Hezbollah, and the bodies of three soldiers killed by the group.

Yesterday, some Israeli editorial pages demanded a tougher response to the latest crisis. ``As a sane sovereign state, Israel should have assassinated Haniyeh and his entire government, which is working for the destruction of Israel," declared Shaul Schiff in the Hatzofe newspaper, referring to the Palestinian prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas.

Others called on the country to curb its emotional reaction. Akiva Eldar, an influential columnist, said Olmert had been too hasty when he backed away from vows to take risks for peace because of ``a military failure that cost the precious lives of two soldiers and the capture of their buddy."

He said Olmert should trade Shalit for the two most respected prisoners, Fatah's Marwan Barghouti and Hamas's Abdul Khaleq Natshe, the architects of the prisoners' document.

``Their release would be the decisive blow to Khaled Mashal, who is ready to fight Jewish children down to the last drop of Palestinian children's blood," Eldar wrote in Ha'aretz, referring to Hamas's hard-line, Damascus-based leader.

Some Palestinian analysts said Haniyeh had a golden opportunity to seize the initiative within Hamas, independent of Mashal.

``This is a good chance for them" to prove they are moderate and responsible, said Jihad Hamad, a pollster and sociologist with the Independent Center for Strategic Studies and Polls.

Khalil Abu Leila, a Hamas leader in Gaza City, said that Palestinians were angry over recent civilian deaths in Israeli air strikes and that it would be politically difficult for Hamas to compromise.

A Palestinian national security soldier, who said he was not allowed to give his name, reflected that sentiment.

``We believe they should keep [the Israeli corporal] and exchange him," the soldier said as he sat in an empty lot in Rafah after being ordered to leave his post at the airport before the Israelis occupied it. ``The whole world moved for one prisoner on the Israeli side. Nobody moved for 10,000 on the Palestinian side."

Correspondent Sa'id Ghazali contributed to this story from Jerusalem. Material from the Associated Press was also included.