Israeli troops go into Gaza
RAFAH, Gaza Strip — Israel kept up the pressure on Palestinian militants to release a captive Israeli soldier today, sending its warplanes to bomb a Hamas training camp after knocking out electricity and water supplies for most of the 1.3 million residents of the Gaza Strip.
Palestinians dug in behind walls and embankments, preparing for a major strike after Israel sent in troops and tanks, and bombarded bridges and a power station.
Later, Israeli aircraft struck a training camp of the Hamas militant group in Rafah, witnesses said. The army had no immediate comment.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas deplored the incursion as a "crime against humanity," and a leading Hamas politician issued a call to arms against the Israeli troops.
Meanwhile, concerns about the fate of a missing West Bank settler grew after militants claiming to hold him displayed what they said was a copy of his identification card.
Israeli Justice Minister Haim Ramon said Hamas's Syria-based political chief, Khaled Mashaal, was "not immune" from Israeli reprisal.
Ramon told Israel Radio in a separate interview that he believed diplomacy had run its course.
Abbas urged the U.S. and international Mideast negotiators to intervene to halt the operation. An aide said Abbas called Syrian President Bashar Assad to ask him to persuade Mashaal to free the soldier. Assad promised to do so, the aide said on condition of anonymity because he was discussing private talks.
Deputy Prime Minister Nasser Shaer of Hamas said his government, too, was trying to resolve the situation diplomatically, but he would not say whether that involved direct contact with Israel.
The militants who seized Shalit have demanded the release of hundreds of Palestinian women and children held in Israeli jails in exchange for information about the captured soldier.
Complicating matters was a new claim by the Hamas-linked Popular Resistance Committees that it had also kidnapped a Jewish settler, 18-year-old Eliahu Asheri, in the West Bank.
