Israel steps up bid to free hostage soldier

Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert stepped up pressure on the Palestinian government, ordering his military to “do all it can” to free an abducted soldier and hinting Israel may arrest Hamas leaders in Gaza.

Olmert’s threat, just hours after an Israeli air strike blasted the Palestinian prime minister’s office yesterday, signalled that the government was losing patience with diplomatic efforts to end the crisis and was planning to escalate its military offensive.

Israeli aircraft, gunboats and artillery have pounded the Gaza Strip since Israeli troops and tanks took up positions in southern Gaza on Wednesday in an operation aimed at pressuring Palestinians to free Cpl Gilad Shalit.

The Hamas-affiliated militants holding Shalit have offered to give Israel information about him in exchange for the release of hundreds of prisoners in Israeli jails, a deal Israel has rejected.

“These are difficult days for Israel, but we have no intention of giving in to any form of blackmailing,” Olmert said. “Everyone understands that giving in to terror today means an invitation to the next act of terrorism, and we will not act that way.”

Meanwhile, Israel reopened a cargo crossing into Gaza to allow food and fuel shipments into the territory.

Egypt has been working to broker a compromise to free the soldier and end the standoff, but negotiations were complicated by confusion over who is in charge of Shalit’s fate.

Prime minister Ismail Haniyeh’s Hamas-led government said it had no contact with the kidnappers. The militants holding Shalit are presumed to answer to Hamas’ leader, Khaled Mashaal, who lives in Syria. But Hamas’ foreign leadership denied having any authority over the matter.

“We have no contact with those holding the prisoner,” said Osama Hamdan, a top leader of the Islamic militant group who is based in Lebanon.

Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak was trying to enlist Syrian president Bashar Assad’s help to persuade Hamas leaders to release Shalit, while Egypt’s intelligence chief was talking to Mashaal directly, an Egyptian official said.

The efforts were continuing, “but time is not on the Palestinians’ side”, said the official.

US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice called Olmert yesterday to discuss the situation. Olmert told Rice there was no humanitarian crisis in Gaza and said Israel would use all means at its disposal to get Shalit released.

Olmert told his Cabinet that he had instructed the military to “do all it can” to get Shalit back safely, but added that the offensive would end immediately if he was released, according to the official in the meeting.

Raising the stakes, Israeli aircraft launched two missiles into Haniyeh’s empty office building early yesterday, damaging offices and leaving parts of the building smouldering.

“This is unacceptable,” Haniyeh said. “This will not break the will of the Palestinian people.”

Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, a rival of Haniyeh’s from the moderate Fatah Party, surveyed the damage with Haniyeh and called the attack “a dirty, criminal act”.