Israelis pressure Palestinians in effort to win soldier back

RAFAH, Gaza Strip -- Israel turned up the pressure on Palestinian militants to release a captive soldier Wednesday, 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.\nThe Hamas-led Palestinian government called for a prisoner swap with Israel, saying the Gaza offensive would not secure the soldier's release. Hamas-affiliated militants holding the hostage previously made that demand, but this was the first time the government did.\nPalestinians 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. Warplanes fired missiles in northern and souther Gaza.\nNo casualties have been reported since the offensive began early Wednesday.\nResidents of northern Gaza, preparing for what they feared could be a long military operation, stocked up on food, candles and batteries for radios as a minister warned of a "humanitarian crisis."\nIt was Israel's first ground offensive since pulling its soldiers and settlers out of Gaza last summer. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Israel would not balk at "extreme action" to bring Cpl. Gilad Shalit, 19, home but did not intend to reoccupy Gaza.\nPalestinian 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.\nMeanwhile, 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.\nIsraeli tanks and soldiers began taking up positions east of Rafah overnight under cover of tank shells, witnesses and Palestinian security officials said. Capt. Jacob Dallal, a military spokesman, said troops moved a mile inside the coastal strip.\nIsraeli warplanes fired at least nine missiles at Gaza's only power station, cutting electricity to 65 percent of the Gaza Strip, engineers at the station said. The station's three functioning turbines and a gasoline reservoir were engulfed in flames.\nWasfi Kabha, the Palestinian minister of prisoner affairs, said the Israeli attacks were creating a "humanitarian crisis."\n"They hit the bridges, they hit the power station, so there will be a problem in water supply and health services," he told the British Broadcasting Corp.\nThe Israeli military said in a statement that three bridges were attacked "to impair the ability of the terrorists to transfer the kidnapped soldier." Knocking down the bridges cut Gaza in two, Palestinian security officials said.\nWitnesses reported heavy artillery shelling near the long-closed Gaza airport outside of Rafah, just over the border with Israel. Warplanes flew low over the strip, rocking it with sonic booms and shattering windows.\nFighter jets repeatedly fired missiles at open fields in northern and southern Gaza in a show of force, the military said. Two of the missiles hit empty Hamas training camps in the southern Gaza Strip, witnesses said. Separately, Israel attacked a rocket-making factory in southern Gaza.\n"We won't hesitate to carry out extreme action to bring Gilad back to his family," Olmert said. "All the military activity that started overnight will continue in the coming days.\n"We do not intend to reoccupy Gaza. We have one objective, and that is to bring Gilad home."\nThe 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.\nOlmert repeated that Israel will not negotiate the release with militant groups.\nLater, the Palestinian Information Ministry said it was "natural logic" to carry out a prisoner exchange.\n"This has been exercised by previous Israeli governments with Hezbollah and the PLO, and this is what other countries do in conflict situations," the ministry statement said.\nShalit was taken captive Sunday during an attack on a southern Israeli military post by militants affiliated with the Palestinians' ruling Hamas party. Israel believes the group's Syria-based leaders ordered the operation.\nIsraeli Justice Minister Haim Ramon said Hamas' Syria-based political chief, Khaled Mashaal, was "not immune" from Israeli reprisal.\n"Khaled Mashaal, as someone who is overseeing, actually commanding the terror acts, is definitely a target," Ramon, an Olmert confidant, told Army Radio. The station interpreted his comments as meaning Mashaal was a target for assassination.\nIsrael tried to kill Mashaal in a botched attempt in Jordan in 1997. Two Mossad agents injected Mashaal with poison but were caught. As Mashaal lay dying in a Jordanian hospital, King Hussein forced Israel to provide the antidote in return for releasing the Mossad agents.\nRamon told Israel Radio in a separate interview that he believed diplomacy had run its course.\nAbbas deplored the Israeli invasion, calling it "collective punishment and a crime against humanity," according to a statement.\nAbbas urged the United States and international negotiators to intervene to halt the operation.\nAn 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.\nDeputy 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.\n"We call for an immediate halt to the invasion, and urge that the soldier's life be spared," Shaer said.